Comment # 1 on bug 1118557 from Dr. Werner Fink

No CM but

 > grep fontset -i /usr/share/X11/app-defaults/XDvi
 *tipShell.fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

here it simply works

 > xdvi
 > echo $?
 0

IMHO xfig still requires mkfontdir/mkfontscale/xorg-x11-core-fonts and the
execution of the fonts-config perl script