[gentoo-user] How to set up monospaced xterm fonts?

[gentoo-user] How to set up monospaced xterm fonts?

[Walter Dnes]

  Lucidasanstypewriter-12 is still my favourite xterm font.  A long time
ago, it switched from ISO8859-1 to ISO10646.  Fortunately, I had 2
machines, and salvaged the /usr/share/fonts directory from one, and
still insert it in place of whatever portage gives me.  I realize that
it's an ugly hack, and I'd like to do things the right way.  The problem
is that I can't figure out how.  I'm doing a re-install on a machine, so
I can play around a little bit.  On the fresh install when I include...

/usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry +0+0

...in my .xinitrc and launch X manually.  The xterm is rather small.
When I {CTRL}{RIGHT-CLICK}, the xterm dies and disappears.  Meanwhile,
on the text console that launched X is the message...

Warning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*" to type FontStruct
Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Error: Aborting: no font found

  Note that I did not specify any fonts.  My Google-fu didn't help very
much.  The best suggestions I found were to...
a) put all sub-directories in /usr/share/fonts into FontPath statements
in xorg.conf
b) run "xlsfonts > textfile" and search for a font

  I found a bunch of 8859-1 fonts, and chose "b&h luxi" fonts (put
special characters in the name, why don't you?).  I inserted the
following into my .xinitrc (backslashes are required).

/usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry +0+0 -fn -b\&h-luxi\ mono-*-*-*--*-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1 &

...and started X.  This time the xterm did not die on {CTRL}{RIGHT-CLICK}.
Only "Default" font size and "Unreadable" worked properly.  All other
choices ended up with a middling font size when I cycled through the
choices.  The text console from which I launched X reported...

/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '5x7'
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '6x10'
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '7x13'
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '9x15'
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '10x20'

  Some progress, but I'm not there yet.  I'm sure people have working
setups.  Any ideas?

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] How to set up monospaced xterm fonts?

[Emanuele Rusconi]

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If it helps, I have these two lines in my ~/.Xresources:

XTerm*faceName: Terminus
XTerm*faceSize: 13


-- Emanuele Rusconi

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Re: [gentoo-user] How to set up monospaced xterm fonts?

[Walter Dnes]

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On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 09:45:15AM +0100, Emanuele Rusconi wrote
> If it helps, I have these two lines in my ~/.Xresources:
> 
> XTerm*faceName: Terminus
> XTerm*faceSize: 13

  It didn't work.  xterm died on me again.  Going with the font I
specified before, and cycling through the choices, here is what I got in
the console that launched X

========================================
Huge
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '10x20'

Large
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '9x15'

Medium
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '7x13'

Small
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '6x10'

Tiny
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font '5x7'

Unreadable works

Default works
========================================

  At least I now know what it it wants.  File-attached is a gzipped dump
from xlsfonts on that machine.  I've read documentation on the output
format, but I don't know what to do next.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

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[gentoo-user] [SOLVED] How to set up monospaced xterm fonts?

[Walter Dnes]

  See the last post "Fri Jan 23, 2015 1:56 pm" in the thread
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-813945-start-0.html  Apparently,
some time ago, USE="nls" became necessary for basic xterm functionality
in ISO8859-1.  If there was a news item, I missed it.  I tried...

USE="nls" emerge font-misc-misc

...and now things mostly work.  The xterm has multiple font sizes for
unreadable/tiny/small/medium/large/huge.  Text defaults to bold; I'll
try to figure that out.  Next step is to grep all "media-fonts" entries
in /var/lib/portage/world, and rebuild them.  I notice that...

media-fonts/* nls

...in package.use actually works the way I want, which simplifies things
rebuilding now, and it'll automatically catch any updates or new fonts
in the future.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] [SOLVED] How to set up monospaced xterm fonts?

[Stroller]

> On Fri, 20 November 2015, at 10:35 p.m., Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> 
> ... Apparently,
> some time ago, USE="nls" became necessary for basic xterm functionality
> …   If there was a news item, I missed it. 
> 
> ...in package.use actually works the way I want, which simplifies things
> rebuilding now, and it'll automatically catch any updates or new fonts
> in the future.

Your phrases "became necessary for basic xterm functionality" and "if there was a news item" read like dissatisfaction.

They read like you're unhappy that the package didn't behave as you expect. 

Maybe they would have behaved the way you expected, had you not disabled the default USE flags in the first place.

This is the second time this year you've posted a problem to this list and then, a few days later, a [SOLVED] saying "it seems the solution is to enable this USE flag which is enabled by default in all the base profiles".

Stroller.


• http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/user/302420?do=post_view_threaded

• http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/user/301556

Re: [gentoo-user] [SOLVED] How to set up monospaced xterm fonts?

[Walter Dnes]

  I apologize if this is a duplicate.  My broadband ISP seems to be
having problems, and I don't think my previous attempt got through.
This post coming to you via glorious dialup.

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 08:20:09AM +0000, Stroller wrote
>
> > On Fri, 20 November 2015, at 10:35 p.m., Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> > 
> > ... Apparently,
> > some time ago, USE="nls" became necessary for basic xterm functionality
> > ???   If there was a news item, I missed it. 
> > 
> > ...in package.use actually works the way I want, which simplifies things
> > rebuilding now, and it'll automatically catch any updates or new fonts
> > in the future.
>
> Your phrases "became necessary for basic xterm functionality" and
> "if there was a news item" read like dissatisfaction.
>
> They read like you're unhappy that the package didn't behave as
> you expect.

  xterm stopped working properly on my system; yes, I was unhappy

> Maybe they would have behaved the way you expected, had you not
> disabled the default USE flags in the first place.
>
> This is the second time this year you've posted a problem to this
> list and then, a few days later, a [SOLVED] saying "it seems the
> solution is to enable this USE flag which is enabled by default in
> all the base profiles".

  I like to keep my install "lean and mean".  In fact, I have to.  My
main system is a Dell Inspiron 530 Core Duo Conroe, 3 GHZ Pentium 4 with
3 gigs of ram.  It shipped in June 2008 and still works fine, but it's
obviously not a "gaming rig".

  It's a prime candidate for Gentoo.  I subscribe to NHL GameCentre
Live.  After a fresh install, with vanilla unoptimized code, it can't
even keep up with the slowest stream speed of 800 kbits/sec.  After
optimizing and running "emerge @system && emerge @world", it handles the
fastest stream of 4500 kbits/sec.  At that speed the load is 2.4 on a
2-core cpu, because Flash is a resource hog, but it works.

  I have 2 newer systems that I use as "hot backup" as well as general
playing around.  I update them every so often, as well as rsyncing my
home directory over to them.  This is in addition to backups to an
external USB drive.  Until such time as the Inspiron 530 dies, or can't
handle stuff I need, I'm not going to take it to the regional ewaste
dump.

  As for base flags changing, what percentage of this list have an ISP
that runs IPV6?  And no, I'm not talking about a limited beta.  At one
point, I started with USE="-* blah blah blah".  The USE line got a bit
long with all the flags I added.  I was effectively building my own
custom profile.  Lately, I've run without USE="-*".  Now I have a lot of
USE="-blah -blah -blah" and my USE line is just as long.  Do you know
that Opera pulls in gstreamer by default unless I have "-gstreamer" in
either USE or package.use?  And fltk defaults to pulling in xinerama
unless explicitly over-ridden.  Etc, etc.

  When USE="netifrc" became necessary for OpenRC, a developer posted on
this list warning everbody who was running "USE=-*".  We got news items
for changes in how the libav and ffmpeg flags were being handled.
That's how this should have been handled.  There's something in the IT
industry called "the principle of least surprise" aka "the principle of
least astonishment".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment  If you're
doing something that has worked for years, it should not suddenly break
one day *WITHOUT NOTICE*.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications