Fixed some font problems (Debian, emacs, abiword, acroread)
 

(I haven't posted enough times to be trusted to post URLs, so they are obfuscated with inserted spaces. Sorry about that.)

I had a bunch of font problems with some programs under Debian 3.0 which I know has affected others (http ww w.mail-archive.com/debian-user@lists.debian.org/msg42610.html, http mail.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2003-04/msg00616.html) but for which I found no solution by web-search. As I now have it working, I'll say what I did. (Except for 'dia', for which I'm about to post a question in the 'software' forum.)

The problem: starting "emacs" (but not xemacs) I would get an error message:

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

and the characters would all display as rectangular boxes. However, xfontsel says the font exists. I have also seen the same symptoms in Abiword, and it has been reported (link above) in acroread.

The solution:

I followed instructions in the font de-uglification HOWTO. (http ww w.tldp.org/HOWTO/FDU/x-config.html) I made three changes:

* Copied some truetype fonts from my windows partition and put them at the front of the X font path.
* Moved 100dpi above 75dpi, and made them unscaled
* Changed my resolution to 100x100 dpi (was something like 90x96) by changing /etc/gdm/gdm.conf

and now it works. I don't know which change was the important one.

Some file diffs:

$ diff -c XF86Config-4.working XF86Config-4
*** XF86Config-4.working Mon Nov 10 14:44:49 2003
--- XF86Config-4 Mon Nov 10 22:17:39 2003
***************
*** 10,21 ****
Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
! FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
- FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
- FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
--- 10,23 ----
Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
! FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts/"
! FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts/dia/"
! FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled"
! FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
! FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
EndSection

Section "Module"


$ diff -c gdm.conf.orig gdm.conf
*** gdm.conf.orig Mon Nov 10 14:56:36 2003
--- gdm.conf Mon Nov 10 14:57:03 2003
***************
*** 127,131 ****

[server-Standard]
name=Standard server
! command=/usr/bin/X11/X -deferglyphs 16 -nolisten tcp
flexible=true
--- 127,131 ----

[server-Standard]
name=Standard server
! command=/usr/bin/X11/X -dpi 100 -deferglyphs 16 -nolisten tcp
flexible=true

Re: Fixed some font problems (Debian, emacs, abiword, acroread)
 

the settings above are not included in the gdm.config i have on my system.. any ideas? :S

system: Debian, kernal version. 2.9.1 i686 sid

thanks everyone

Only the font lines re-ordering is needed ?
 

I think maybe the only change needed is to move the 75dpi and 100dpi lines
in the font config up above the Speedo fonts entry.

I did that and everything started working as far as I can tell.
I didn't even need to add the unscaled setting...

The only thing I had to do was this:

done

This might not work for you, but it work on two debian boxes where I did it.