How can I activate bitmap fonts?

Solution 1:

Try linking to 70-force-bitmaps instead. 70-yes-bitmaps doesn't seem to have anything in it. (This is taken from your link.) This worked for me on Ubuntu 12.04.

The process is like this (Added by a user on 14.04)

sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-force-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/
sudo unlink /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf # For disabling no-bitmap setting

Then do this to update settings

sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig

Solution 2:

As of Ubuntu 18.04, there seems to be no way to make all bitmap fonts available to font-config (therefore GUI applications), even one choose to use 70-force-bitmaps.conf. Take Lucida for example:

$ ls -l 70*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Sep 23 11:38 70-force-bitmaps.conf -> ../conf.avail/70-force-bitmaps.conf
$ xlsfonts | grep -ci lucida
1200
$ fc-cache | grep -ci lucida
0

Even enabling it by name wouldn't work

$ cat 50-enable-lucida.conf
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <selectfont>
    <acceptfont>
      <pattern>
        <patelt name="family"><string>lucida</string></patelt>
      </pattern>
    </acceptfont>
  </selectfont>
</fontconfig>
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
$ fc-cache | grep -ci lucida
0

70-force-bitmpas.conf still makes a select few fonts work - they are fixed, unifont, wqy-bitmap, all of them are typically used in xterm, where fixed is the main font and the other two are backup fonts to cover CJK character set.

It seems there is a progressive trend towards discouraging the use of bitmap fonts except in the occasion it can't be forgone - terminal emulators.