Removing the bold-condensed type1 files does indeed have an effect -- it seems that the system still thinks the font is still installed (which is likely because I didn't properly uninstall the font, since I don't yet know how).
Now KDE displays Helvetica Bold, which is much more readable than Nimbus L Sans Bold Condensed -- but is the wrong font, and looks kind of crusty since it isn't being antialiased. Anyway, I think this confirms my theory that KDE is simply picking the wrong font. So if you know which part of KDE is responsible for that, then you can assign this bug to the appropriate package. BTW, Nimbus Sans L is in the "gsfonts" package. thanks -- graham
