[Linux] "startx" doesn't work anymore

[Nikola Miljanic]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Arieh Markel wrote:

> > I changed the following:
> > 
> > 1) installed the 100dpi RPM from the RH CD
> > 2) added a font path to my XF86Config file for
> >    the 100dpi as per the HOWTO. (and yup, I checked for typos, etc.)
> > 
> > I restarted X and everything worked great. My fonts even looked better!
> > 
> > I powered down my computer, went to bed, woke-up, turned it back on, and
> > now "startx" doesn't work at all. I get this msg:
> > 
> > _FontTransSocketUNIXConnect: Can't connect: errno = 111
> > Fatal Server Error: could not open default font 'fixed'
> > X connection to :0.0 broken
> > 
> > I grepped for "fixed" and couldn't find it in any nearby X config files.
> > It's certainly not in my FontPath in the XF86Config file, so apparently
> > X looks in many places to decide what fonts to load (which is unwise
> > IMHO). I also grepped for the "_FontTrans" from above and that didn't
> > yield anything either.
> 
> The 'fixed' is not on the X config files, but on the X font database.
> 
> My guess is that the font server daemon does not know about your new
> fontpath.


This problem is a perfect example why people should post their XF86Config
every time they have an X question/problem.

'fixed' is usually aliased in the 'misc' font directory.  That means that
in your 'misc' fonts directory, you should have a file called 'fonts.alias'.
Here's what I have:

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
nick@static>head fonts.alias
! $XConsortium: fonts.alias,v 1.31 94/04/11 12:28:00 gildea Exp $
fixed        -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
variable     -*-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
5x7          -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso8859-1
5x8          -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--8-80-75-75-c-50-iso646.1991-irv       
.....and so on.....

Notice that in my case 'fixed' is a 75dpi font.  If you've tried to change
your fonts to 100dpi, it might have caused problems.  But I cannot tell
what exactly happened, because I don't have your XF86Config.


However, this is just for aliases.  You should also have a file called
'fonts.dir'.  This is how the X server figures out which fonts are
available in each font directory, and of what kind they are.  If you don't
have 'fonts.dir' in a font directory, check out the man page for
'mkfontdir'.  It will instruct you on how to run this command to create the
'fonts.dir' in the font directory which is missing it.


As for X being unwise to look in many places for font info, I disagree.
You have to keep in mind that X was originally designed when disk space was
at an extreme premium.  So, the ability to point X to many different
computers which were running font servers with various fonts was a great
plus, because one didn't have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars
for a few hundred megabyte hard-disk to be able to store all those fonts
locally.
I think that if you spend some time educating yourself about the matter,
you will discover just how flexible X is when it comes to many things.  And
then you will realize how all this is A Good Thing[tm]. :-)



===============================================================================
 Nikola Miljanic [Nick] |                           | Metro Link, Inc.
 nick@metrolink.com     |                           | http://www.metrolink.com
===============================================================================
There was a time when I would ask why.