Linux Step By Steps

VGA Fonts for X
Written by Collins Richey on 20-April-03.

I'm always looking for ways to make text easier to read for my tired old eyes.. Since I run my screen at 1280x1024 to maximize the screen real estate, I need a large font for my xterm windows (aterm windows in my case). The vga11x19 font from VGA Fonts for X filled the bill nicely.

Here's what to do:
  1. Download the fonts you like from http://www.dreaming.org/~giles/bashprompt/xfonts/
  2. Become root
  3. Create a new directory or copy them to an existing font directory
  4. In that directory, issue 'mkfontdir'
  5. Update your XF86Config, if you created a new directory
  6. Issue 'fc-cache'
  7. Restart your X server


Update your ~/.Xdefaults file to use the font you like for xterm, aterm, etc. My .Xdefaults entries for aterm follow:

aterm*background: #FFFFE0

aterm*foreground: blue

aterm*font: vga11x19

aterm*loginShell: True

aterm*savedLines: 500


Enjoy!