posted 10 years ago
Fonts in Unix/Linux can be very confusing. There were actually several generations of attempts at providing fonts, the mechanisms and storage locations were different, and even the clients varied. Some mechanisms were for the benefit of non-GUI systems (for example, TeX), some were usable by only a selected set of GUI apps, some were universal.
Things have pretty much stabilized in recent years, but remnants of the older systems remain for legacy purposes.
X-font servers are not installed on the system "by default", unless your "default" was a graphical (X) install or at least contained graphical support as a standard feature.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.