[Techtalk] "I need to use Windows because ..."

[Kathryn Andersen]

On Sat, Aug 10, 2002 at 02:12:36PM -0700, Akkana wrote:
> Megan Golding writes:
> > 1) SOLVED: For the longest time, I kept retreating to the familiarity
> > of Windows to burn CD's. Then I finally re-read the CD-Recording
> > HOWTO and realize the commands are actually quite easily. 'cdrecord'
> > and 'mkisofs' are all I need to burn data to a CD. One of these days,
> > I'll get around to 'xcdroast', but I'm happy with the commands right
> 
> That was one of my last few windows uses too!  xcdroast is a little
> rough in the UI, but in terms of actual functionality it turns out
> that it works better than the windows burning software I had been
> using.  gToaster and eroaster both have somewhat nicer UIs, and I've
> been experimenting with them lately (they look more like the windows
> software, which means they give a little less control than xcdroast
> does but they have an easier interface for the specific case of
> mirroring a few hard drive directories onto a CD).  Setting up
> the kernel to recognize an IDE burner used to be hard, but modern
> distros handle that nicely.

I use gToaster myself, though I've just discovered that webmin has a
CD-burning module, so I might check that out.  On my first little look
at it, it seems that one can set it up with different sets of files to
burn, which means it could be good for doing backups with.

I actually ended up buying a SCSI CD-burner when I bought mine, even
though it was noticeably more expensive, since I already had an external
SCSI port for my scanner, and I *knew* that I would have no hassles in
getting an actual SCSI device to work (SCSI support is old and
well-established in Linux).  And I didn't (have any hassles, that is).
Actually I did have hassles, with xcdroast, but then I'm using
gtoaster...
 
> > 2) NOT SOLVED: Windows fonts. I do a fair amount of Web work that
> > involves making images. Unfortunately, I still have to return to
> > Windows when my art director(s) say they want something in Impact
> > (insert any Windows True Type font here). Grrr...
> 
> Windows truetype fonts work great in linux once you learn the trick!
> I've been having great fun prowling the web for free fonts, and adding
> them to my system (now I have way more fonts than I have time to explore
> in a font picker dialog).  Unfortunately, as is so typical with linux,
> the procedure for adding a new font is different on each distro.
> I've gotten pretty good at adding fonts on Redhat, so if anyone is
> struggling with that and wants a mini-tutorial, let me know and I'll
> write one.

There are three aspects to using true type fonts with Linux; two of them
are almost trivial, but the third one is not.

1) TT fonts working with X.  Easy -- just plonk the fonts in a directory,
add that directory to the font path, restart X and X font server.
(and once the fonts work with X, they work with The Gimp too)

2) TT fonts working with Ghostscript.  Fairly easy.  Just plonk the
fonts in a direc -- oh yeah, you've already done that -- and create a
Fontmap file (I wrote a script to do that, now where is it...) in that
directory, and add that directory to your GS_FONTPATH environment
variable.

Okay, here's the script:
--------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# Given a TrueType font file
# generate the Ghostscript Fontmap entry.
#
# Requires:
#       ttf2afm
#       grep basename awk

for ttfile in $*
do
        base=`basename $ttfile .ttf`
        fontname=`ttf2afm $ttfile | grep FontName | awk '{ print $2 }'`

        echo "/$fontname        ($ttfile)       ;"
done
--------------------------------------------------------------

And you call it in the directory with all the fonts in it, like this:

ttf2fontmap *.ttf >Fontmap

You may have to edit the Fontmap file to remove some of the crappy fonts
that didn't produce proper font names when queried.

3) TT fonts working with (pick random word processing program for
Linux).  I swear, each WP program seems to have its own incompatible
font system!  AbiWord uses its own fonts, I think OpenOffice uses its
own fonts, (La)TeX uses its own really really hard to set up fonts...
Are there *any* WP-related suites on Linux that simply use the same
fonts as X and/or Ghostscript?
 
> Somehow on
> my debian system I ended up with Dragonwicke from the gimp-freefont
> package as the font for my menus in mozilla, and even though it's barely
> readable it makes me giggle every time I fire up mozilla so I haven't
> changed it back (besides, it's pretty :-).

How odd.  I recently discovered that one can set one's Netscape fonts by
tweaking the Netscape X-resources file in one's home directory -- maybe
something similar happened to your Mozilla, though I wouldn't have
expected the fonts to change without user intervention (bug, bug, bug).
 
> Suzi Anvin writes:
> > 1) Wordprocessing.  I swear I am cursed.  I cannot get Open Office to 
> > work on any machine in this office.  I hear it is what I need.  I tried 
> 
> OpenOffice is an impressive program, but it's SO hard to install!
> I've fought with it on three different machines, trying different
> options each time, and I always end up spending at least an hour
> before I get something that works.  I wish someone would package
> up an OpenOffice RPM that just sticks the software in the right
> place and doesn't require any further installation.  Is it easier
> on Debian?

There isn't even a package for Debian, so far as I can discover.
 
> > I'm in the process of trying the latest abiword as it had a new version 
> 
> Abiword and kword have both shown lots of improvement, but I have
> one frustration with them: neither one can import an html file.
> That seems like a simple and common request for a word processor.

Yes, one would think so...

> Maybe soon ...
To tie in a thread from another list... "write it yourself"? 8-)

Kathryn Andersen
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Eric Young: The book still knows who it is, from its point of view.
				(disputing in a database lecture, 1988)
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