You can tell one existing X session on the installed host to use the new "intlfonts" fonts with: $ xset +fp @PREFIX@/lib/X11/fonts/intlfonts To make the effect permanent for future X sessions, you will have to edit certain files in yout X installation. For example if you are only using the "startx" command to start a local X session then you would add the above command to your ~/.xinitrc script. If you're running a local X server from xdm then you would need to set the complete set of font directories in the xdm/Xservers file with the '-fp' option common to all X servers. If you are using the X font server (xfs) then you would add the intlfonts install directory to the xfs/config file in the comma separated list of directories given for the "catalogue" setting. For example: catalogue = @PREFIX@/lib/X11/fonts/misc/, @PREFIX@/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/, @PREFIX@/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/, @PREFIX@/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/, @PREFIX@/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/, @PREFIX@/lib/X11/fonts/intlfonts/