Fonts in GNU/Linux

In a GNU/Linux system fonts are generally located in three places,

1) /usr/share/fonts,
2) /usr/local/share/fonts and
3) /home//.fonts

These are defined in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf

To add a True type font,

# cd /usr/local/share/fonts # or /usr/share/fonts, but this is less safe
# sudo mkdir truetype
# cd truetype
# sudo cp /path/to/your/fonts/*.ttf .
# sudo cp /path/to/your/fonts/*.TTF .
# sudo chown root:root *.ttf
# sudo chown root:root *.TTF
# sudo mkfontscale

>> Note: For fedora do # ttmkfdir before fc-cache

# sudo mkfontdir
# sudo fc-cache


(mkfontscale and mkfontdir creates fonts.scale and fonts.dir files within /usr/local/share/fonts/truetype, and fc-cache updates fonts.cache-1 files within all font directories.)

Now we need to create sym links to other fonts folders,

# ln -s /usr/local/share/fonts/truetype /usr/share/fonts/truetype/myfonts
# ln -s /usr/local/share/fonts/truetype /home//.fonts

Fonts can also be added directly to /user/.fonts

But this way its available only to particular user(s).

Also we can open the virtual fonts folder thru nautilus for GNOME, by Open Locatiom --> fonts:

or by,

# nautilus fonts:

Again this restricts to particular user(s).

For bitmapped fonts,

Please refer https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FontInstallHowto