With only gsfonts-x11, I get the same results as you for find /usr -name fonts.alias | xargs grep -i 'helvetica-bold-r-' and find /usr -name fonts.dir | xargs grep -i 'urw-nimbus.*bold.*iso8859-1$' and dlocate n019004l.pfb and yet xterm -fn '-*-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-*-180-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1' does not work.
So there must be some *other* thing installed on your system that is not installed on mine that is making Xlib Helvetica work. I don't know what that is. -- Jamie Zawinski https://www.jwz.org/ https://www.dnalounge.com/