Problem of Xfig not being able to find fonts on Fedora Core 9
can be solved by issuing the following commands (as root):

# mkfontscale /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/
# mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/

Reference: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=162677

===================================================================
To use Helvica narrow fonts, add following lines in 
/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/fonts.dir file (also add number of lines
added (here 40) to the value in first line, say if old value was 434, make it 
474)


n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-10
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-15
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-2
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-3
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-4
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-9
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-r
n019043l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-u
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-10
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-15
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-2
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-3
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-4
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-9
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-r
n019044l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-r-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-u
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-10
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-15
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-2
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-3
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-4
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-9
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-r
n019063l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-medium-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-u
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-10
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-15
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-2
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-3
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-4
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-9
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-r
n019064l.pfb -urw-nimbus sans l condensed-bold-i-condensed--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-u


Basically word "condensed" is added after "nimbus sans l".
=====================================================================================
On FC14 onwards (Reference: https://forums.fedoraforum.org/archive/index.php/t-288359.html)

Following  fonts packages required by xfig:

xorg-x11-fonts-misc
urw-fonts

If xfig is not able to locate any font output of:

xlsfonts | grep "urw-nimbus roman no9"

will be null.

Reinst urw-fonts package (problem is due to wrong order of installing xfig and urw-fonts
package)