Installing Fonts in Xming with the Windows Bash Subsystem

12 Apr 2017

I’ve had problems getting the fonts I want in Xming on Windows. I tried to follow directions, but couldn’t get mkfontscale running on Windows.

The following process worked for installing Source Code Pro on Windows with Xming:

Download the latest version of Source Code Pro.
Unpack the TTF folder to C:\Program Files (x86)\Xming\fonts\TTF. Create it if it does not yet exist.
In bash, install xfonts-utils, which contains mkfontscale:

sudo apt-get install xfonts-utils

Make sure your Xming fonts directory is editable by the windows user.
run mkfontscale on the fonts:

cd "/mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/Xming"
mkfontscale fonts/TTF
mkfontscale -b -s -l fonts/TTF

Add the font directory to the command you use to launch Xming:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Xming\Xming.exe" -fp "C:/Program Files (x86)/Xming/fonts/misc/,C:/Program Files (x86)/Xming/fonts/TTF/"  :0 -clipboard -multiwindow