I would like to put a font on the Iliad for use in FBReader, but I don't want to deal with root access etc. Is there any way to do this?

The following might work.

Make a directory fonts in the root directory of your CF card and copy the .ttf font files into it. Reboot.

I have found that some fonts crash the reboot. It that happens, just remove the CF card and reboot again. You can then delete the offending font and try again.

I think the above is sufficient for version 0.8.14.

For FBReader 0.8.04 there is the additional problem that $HOME is redefined to be _local/home on the CF card (and $HOME/.fonts.conf is what allows the fonts CF directory to contain fonts). I have not found a completely satisfactory work around for this.

An alternative that requires the use of xterm or a script is to copy the font to one of the predefined internal font directories, for example the directory:
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-western-default
One problem with this is that space is limited on these directories. Also, if adding the font crashes the reboot process you will have to reinstall the firmware.

Does it have to be a CF card or does MMC work just as well?

Does it have to be a CF card or does MMC work just as well? MMC should also work.

An alternative to copying the fonts to /usr/share is to softlink from the MMC or CF to there. In this case, call the directory something other than fonts (fonts_mmc, say). Something like: cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype
ln -s /media/mmc/fonts_mmc mmc


Then reboot, or issue a fc-cache command.