From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 56CC7138CC5 for ; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 02:15:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 12775E0831; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 02:15:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com (ironport2-out.teksavvy.com [206.248.154.181]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22173E07F7 for ; Fri, 27 Mar 2015 02:15:32 +0000 (UTC) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AvYHAGvvdVQXW41a/2dsb2JhbAA3gVOhIk6BB4I2ZxQTIQVJE5QclXWLAXcmAxQQCAICAiCDPQU7glFjBI1Vh2GFbRONBQ X-IPAS-Result: AvYHAGvvdVQXW41a/2dsb2JhbAA3gVOhIk6BB4I2ZxQTIQVJE5QclXWLAXcmAxQQCAICAiCDPQU7glFjBI1Vh2GFbRONBQ X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="5.01,1,1400040000"; d="scan'208";a="114701314" Received: from unknown (HELO waltdnes.org) ([23.91.141.90]) by ironport2-out.teksavvy.com with SMTP; 26 Mar 2015 22:15:31 -0400 Received: by waltdnes.org (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Thu, 26 Mar 2015 22:15:29 -0400 From: "Walter Dnes" Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2015 22:15:29 -0400 To: Gentoo Users List Subject: [gentoo-user] Please explain X fonts? Message-ID: <20150327021529.GA2159@waltdnes.org> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Archives-Salt: 929a45be-d25f-4565-9438-65fea5f69886 X-Archives-Hash: 84e74d11aa45b3cd7fc1d8b389f30e8d I ran into this issue just now setting up X on my ancient netbook that I've just re-installed on. It's been an ongoing issue of mine that I've solved with an ugly hack. I'd like to know "the right way" of doing it. I have a ~/.xinitrc file like so... #!/bin/bash [[ -f ~/.Xresources ]] && xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources /usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry 50x9+0+0 -fn lucidasanstypewriter-12 & /usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry +0+0 -fn lucidasanstypewriter-12 & exec /usr/bin/icewm > ~/.icewm.log 2>&1 Some time ago, somebody decided to deprecate iso8859-1 fonts. And when I run startx, the text console comes up with ======================================================================== /usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font 'lucidasanstypewriter' /usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font 'lucidasanstypewriter' Warning: Cannot convert string "lucidasanstypewriter" to type FontStruct Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font Error: Aborting: no font found Warning: Cannot convert string "lucidasanstypewriter" to type FontStruct Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font Error: Aborting: no font found ======================================================================== xterms come up with some dinky little font. It's bad enough on a 24 in 1920x1080 monitor. On an 11" 1366x768 netbook, it's unreadable. When I do a control-right-click on an xterm to manipulate fonts, the xterm crashes. One of the nice things about having multiple machines, is that I still had another machine with the old fonts. For a few years, I've preserved a copy of /usr/share/fonts from that machine as fonts_do_not_delete. So each time fonts are "updated" on my machines, I rename /usr/share/fonts to /usr/share/fonts.borken and copy the fonts_do_not_delete directory as /usr/share/fonts. OK, so whats supposed to be "the right way" to get working xterms with lucidasanstypewriter-12? -- Walter Dnes I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications