[Openfontlibrary] Linux and fonts (was on inkscape dev list)

[Donn]

Hello,
Didn't get much authority on the Inkscape dev list (well not yet) - which 
surprised me a little. But John Philips advised me to pipe this over here; 
so, with some edits:

I use Kubuntu (Dapper), but I reckon this will apply to a lot of distros:
How do Linux fonts work?

I know that is simplistic and it has to do with fontconfig and a tonne of 
config files and a million type1 fonts in a bajillion folders, but can anyone 
get me started on the big picture?

I'm asking because my little project, FontyPython, revolves around managing 
fonts etc. One of the most irksome things is to have fonts in a chooser (like 
under Inkscape) that I do not want there. 
For example, if I have *zero* fonts in my ~/.fonts directory, and I run 
Inkscape, about 600 fonts list in the chooser! That's just plain nuts! Man, 
that's cashew nuts, Brazil nuts!
(I imagine I inadvertently installed a bunch of them by a casual apt-get 
sometime, but I cannot remember the invocation.)

So, I am wondering about ways to lessen this clutter and write a 'cleanup' 
script that can remove them from the system -- not delete them, just 
uninstall them or whatever the term is. If I cannot do this, then at least 
include a section in the FontyPython help to explain how to fix it.

I can't even find these fonts by 'locate' or 'find'. There's one 
called "Christian Participants" which I don't like and never use and I cannot 
even find the file on the drive, let alone uninstall it!

So, anyone with a clue? have mercy on me :)
/d

BTW - I have a few days to hack and Fonty Python is getting the ability to 
handle OTF and PFB fonts in the next release. This is through no deep 
understanding by myself, but is all due to the Python Imaging Library and the 
good work of the folks over there. It turns out all I needed to do was 
include "*.OTF" and "*.PFB" when filling my arrays with filenames. I *hope* 
it's that easy, tests seem positive. 


-- 
"Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators."
-- Richard Dawkins