I've recently started using xmonad
as my window manager. I also decided to use urxvt
as the default terminal, since it is supposed to be lightweight.
Most applications that give a font configuration option allow me to choose a font face (such as Arial, Consolas, FreeMono, Dejavu Sans etc.), and to set the size in pixels (11px, 12px or whatever). This is easy to understand.
Now when trying to set up the fonts for applications like xterm, urxvt and emacs among others, I have to come up with a rather strange string that looks something like:
"-*-Fixed-Bold-R-Normal-*-13-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
or "-unknown-DejaVu Sans Mono-normal-normal-normal-*-14-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1"
I have used the xfontsel
program to generate this for me, using trial and error. But I don't really understand what it means, or why it is necessary.
In addition, I have also used stuff like this:
URxvt.font: 9x15bold
.
My questions:
- What is the strange long string for configuring fonts?
- What does stuff like
9x15bold
mean? How does it all come together? - Why not stick to the conventional way of setting fonts like most other applications use?
- Why don't xterm and urxvt fonts look as good as, say, gnome-terminal fonts? Is there any way of achieving this?