Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.2.91)
Installed from:    Compiled From Sources
Compiler:          GCC-3.3.4 
OS:                Linux

This part of the code in the "startkde" script still has problems:

--------
# Activate the kde font directories.
#
# There are 4 directories that may be used for supplying fonts for KDE.
#
# There are two system directories. These belong to the administrator.
# There are two user directories, where the user may add her own fonts.
#
# The 'override' versions are for fonts that should come first in the list,
# i.e. if you have a font in your 'override' directory, it will be used in
# preference to any other.
#
# The preference order looks like this:
# user override, system override, X, user, system
#
# Where X is the original font database that was set up before this script
# runs.

usr_odir=$HOME/.fonts/kde-override
usr_fdir=$HOME/.fonts

# Add any user-installed font directories to the X font path
kde_fontpaths=$usr_fdir/fontpaths
do_usr_fdir=1
do_usr_odir=1
if test -r "$kde_fontpaths" ; then
    savifs=$IFS
    IFS="
"
    for fpath in `grep -v '^[     ]*#' < "$kde_fontpaths"` ; do
        rfpath=`echo $fpath | sed "s:^~:$HOME:g"`
        if test -s "$rfpath"/fonts.dir; then
            xset fp+ "$rfpath"
            if test "$rfpath" = "$usr_fdir"; then
                do_usr_fdir=0
            fi
            if test "$rfpath" = "$usr_odir"; then
                do_usr_odir=0
            fi
        fi
    done
    IFS=$savifs
fi

if test -n "$KDEDIRS"; then
  kdedirs_first=`echo "$KDEDIRS"|sed -e 's/:.*//'`
  sys_odir=$kdedirs_first/share/fonts/override
  sys_fdir=$kdedirs_first/share/fonts
else
  sys_odir=$KDEDIR/share/fonts/override
  sys_fdir=$KDEDIR/share/fonts
fi

# We run mkfontdir on the user's font dirs (if we have permission) to pick
# up any new fonts they may have installed. If mkfontdir fails, we still
# add the user's dirs to the font path, as they might simply have been made
# read-only by the administrator, for whatever reason.

# Only do usr_fdir and usr_odir if they are *not* listed in fontpaths
test -d "$sys_odir" && xset +fp "$sys_odir"
test $do_usr_odir -eq 1 && test -d "$usr_odir" && (mkfontdir "$usr_odir" ; xset +fp "$usr_odir")
test $do_usr_fdir -eq 1 && test -d "$usr_fdir" && (mkfontdir "$usr_fdir" ; xset fp+ "$usr_fdir")
test -d "$sys_fdir" && xset fp+ "$sys_fdir"

# Ask X11 to rebuild its font list.
xset fp rehash

--------

There are two classes of issues here:

Are these actions necessary?

Are these actions sufficient?

Since Qt/KDE now uses FontConfig:

Is it necessary to add the KDE font directories to the X fontpath?

It is not sufficient to add the KDE font directories to the X fontpath.  The directory tree rooted with: $HOME/.fonts should already be registered with FontConfig, but the directory $KDEDIR/share/fonts might not be.  It needs to be in: "/etc/fonts/local.conf", but this will take more than a script.

If these directories do need to be added, to the X fontpath or to "/etc/fonts/local.conf", they should not be added redundantly.  Some of these directories are not, or might not, be KDE only font directories and therefore might already be in the X fontpath or accessible by FontConfig.

Running "mkfontdir" on the user's font directories is questionable.

The first issue is that this command has changed since this part of the script was first written.  The current command which comes with XFree86 requires the: "-e" parameter.  If it is run on a font directory without this parameter, it will remove the file: "encodings.dir".  I don't think that KDE needs this, but other programs might.

Second, running the command will only detect BIT MAPPED fonts unless the command: "mkfontscale" is run first, except for the case when the system is using a link:

    mkfontdir -> mkfontscale

In that case the command needs the: "-f" parameter in addition to the: "-e" parameter.  It is also possible that a font directory might have a link:

    fonts.dir -> fonts.scale

Which might also need to be considered.

Further, the current command mkfontscale has bugs in it (and these are probably caused by bugs in FreeType2).  So, if someone has edited the fonts.dir and fonts.scale files by hand to fix this, running the command will overwrite these changes. 

So, this is really something of a mess.

I note that I run my system without any of the above code in my "startkde" script and it works fine (but I don't have any 'override' fonts).  I therefore regard all of the above script code as totally unnecessary -- users should instead see that their system is configured properly.

And that is the final issue.  If the distro *has* configured the system properly, this script code is not only redundant; it is probably going to cause problems.

-- 
JRT