Where are default fonts located

Question

I am running Xterm and need to find the directory of the default bitmap font (misc-fixed). I have looked everywhere but still can't find it. Any ideas?

Here's my output when I run xterm -report-fonts:

Loaded VTFonts(default)
        fNorm: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                        descent:  -10
                max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255
        fBold: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                        descent:  -10
                max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255
        fWide: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                               max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255
        fWBold: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                        descent:  -10
                max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255
xterm: cannot load font "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1"
Loaded VTFonts(default)
        fNorm: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                        descent:  -10
                max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255
        fBold: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0         
                descent:  -10
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                        descent:  -10
                max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255
        fWide: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                        descent:  -10
                max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255
        fWBold: fixed
                all chars:     no
                default char:  0
                direction:     0
                ascent:        11
                descent:       2
                first char:    0
                last char:     255
                maximum-chars: 256
                missing-chars: 33
                present-chars: 223
                min_byte1:     0
                max_byte1:     0
                properties:    22
                min_bounds:
                        lbearing: 0
                        rbearing: 0
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   -1
                        descent:  -10
                max_bounds:
                        lbearing: 2
                        rbearing: 6
                        width:    6
                        ascent:   11
                        descent:  2
                Per-character: 222/255

...

I recently installed Arch with the i3-wm group package for context. Is it also possible the font is simply embedded inside a binary since I didn't explicitly install any fonts?

Would love any insight!!

Answer 1

The default fixed font has no file and is embedded into the X server's code, because it exists as a fallback specifically for situations where you do not have the usual font directories installed.

Once you install the standard X11 bitmap fonts from the xorg-fonts-75dpi xorg-fonts-100dpi xorg-fonts-misc packages, you will find a copy of the font at misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz.

This can be found by grepping /usr/share/fonts/*/fonts.alias for ^fixed or by running xlsfonts -l fixed to look up its XLFD, then by grepping for that XLFD in /usr/share/fonts/*/fonts.dir to look up the file name.

$ cd /usr/share/fonts
$ grep ^fixed */fonts.alias
misc/fonts.alias:fixed        -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
$ grep -- "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1" */fonts.dir
misc/fonts.dir:6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

Note that fixed is aliased specifically to the ISO 8859-1 version of the font, not to the Unicode version.