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So I've read this and now my question is that what is the difference between placing the fonts in ~/.local/share/fonts vs /usr/local/share/fonts?

The answer in the link above says that /usr/local/share/fonts is used "if you need the fonts to be available system-wide", so my guess would be that ~/.local/share/fonts doesn't make the font available system-wide. Although I'm not sure and hence the question.

Thanks in advance.

Rinzwind
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swingcake
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  • Please leave moderation suggestions out of the question and since your title without it already exists ... I changed it to what the body of the question seems to ask ;) And this has been asked before but Ill let others decide on that as I am an editor ;-) – Rinzwind May 23 '18 at 07:20
  • A simple google search with ".local/share/fonts vs /usr/local/share/fonts" didn't yield any results I wanted, so I asked it here. Guess I shouldn't have, it's pretty demotivating. – swingcake May 23 '18 at 07:25
  • Well, the answer is exactly in the post you've linked, so effectively this question is a duplicate. That's alright, though, you've got confirmation to your guess :) – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 23 '18 at 07:27
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    Possible duplicate of [How do I install fonts?](https://askubuntu.com/questions/3697/how-do-i-install-fonts) – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 23 '18 at 07:28
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    @swingcake it is all for the sake of making AU the best knowledge base we can make it. That includes removing anything that is double or distracts from the questions, makes the questions arbitrair, in need of interpretation. It never is personal ;-) – Rinzwind May 23 '18 at 07:32
  • Thanks everyone! One quick question: Since I'm trying to install a font and the README at github says to git clone the repo and symlink it to ~/.local/share/fonts, can I also symlink it to /usr/local/share/fonts to make the font available systemwide, or is it a bad practice? – swingcake May 23 '18 at 07:39
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    No it is not bad practice, but you need to consider this change when you backup your system. And you need to be root/superuser to add the symlink in `/usr/local/share/fonts`. You may lose that configuration on system updates or new installation, so it might not be wise, unless you're the admin of a multi-user system. – pLumo May 23 '18 at 07:41
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    @swingcake yes you can. But I myself tend to toss all fonts into /usr/local/share/fonts I do not see why only 1 user should have a specific font. It is still an option to select them when the font is global. Unless you plan to dump tons and tons of fonts in there... every font is going to nibble at your resources... and a lot of nibbles make for a slow system ;) – Rinzwind May 23 '18 at 08:09
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    swingcake, if that (where you should install a particular font and why) was your real question, that's what you should have asked. See [What is the X Y Problem](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem) – Zanna May 23 '18 at 19:52
  • Quite insightful, I'll keep that in mind @Zanna – swingcake May 24 '18 at 05:04

1 Answers1

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In the original answer linked in your question, it was not clear, that .local/share/fonts actually meant ~/.local/share/fonts. I updated the answer.

~ is equal to the users home folder.

If you install something in the users home folder, it won't be available for everyone but just for the user (=> not system-wide). This is quite a general concept.

pLumo
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