I must confess, after having written here earlier and not having gotten a reply and having done much additional research since without making much headway, I remain baffled respecting different font behavior using fontconfig in two distros. Let me restate the problem, perhaps someone can provide light at this point. I'm trying to understand why it is that using Gentoo and gtk-theme-switch (which relies on fontconfig to change fonts and themes in various applications) I'm offered a different font selection than that offered in Debian or Arch using the very same program. Configuring /etc/fonts/local.conf to identify a special font directory in each case (/usr/local/share/fonts in Debian and /usr/share/fonts in Gentoo and Arch) and copying identical font directories from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts into these directories, gtk-theme-switch offers entirely different font interpretations in each case. For example, lucida regular is shown in gtk-theme-switch as an option in Debian but when it's selected, lucida semi-bold is the one actually offered. With Gentoo, the same selection yields lucida regular, medium weight. Why would it be that there is a difference here? One would think that lucida regular means lucida regular. I'd really appreciate some help with this question. I mean if I can't get it here, where can help be obtained? John Lowell
