When trying to configure X I receive the following error.


#X -config /root/xorg.conf.new

---cut Xlog.0.log---

Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed'


----End cut----


What should I check?

Thanks,

ED

Did you compiled/installed the misc fonts?
Also check xorg.conf.new to see if you have included misc fonts:

I have that line in xorg.conf.new



root:~# grep misc xorg.conf.new
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
root:~#


looking in that directory I have a number of gz files.


root:~# ls /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/*gz |wc -l
409
root:~#



Ed

Take a look at Xorg.0.log for any hints about this problem. There is also this FAQ about your problem.

All I can find in Xorg.0.log is the following that might provide any help.

............
(WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
.........




(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Keyboard0" (type: KEYBOARD)
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Mouse0" (type: MOUSE)
(WW) Couldn't load XKB keymap, falling back to pre-XKB keymap
(--) Mouse0: PnP-detected protocol: "ExplorerPS/2"
(II) Mouse0: ps2EnableDataReporting: succeeded

Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed'


I went over all the FAQs on X.org with no luck.

With no apparent error in Xorg.0.log, I can only tell that the new xserver does not like the fonts located in the above dir. I suppose that these fonts came with the previous xserver.
Could you post /root/xorg.conf.new?

font-misc-misc and font-cursor-misc must be installed to provide the base X Windows font 'fixed.' The X Server won't start without this font. In addition to /root/xorg.conf.net, post your existing, known working xorg.conf if this is an upgrade.

Here is my xorg.conf.new file.


Config:

New install of LFS on a VMware machine.


root:~#cat xorg.conf.new
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/local/share/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/x11/modules"
ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/X11/modules"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/OTF"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "record"
Load "dri"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "GLcore"
Load "xtrap"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "HWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "Xinerama" # [<bool>]
#Option "StaticXinerama" # <str>
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vmware"
VendorName "VMware Inc"
BoardName "[VMware SVGA II] PCI Display Adapter"
BusID "PCI:0:15:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

What happens if you run:

root:/sources/xorg#fc-cache -fv
/usr/share/fonts: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/root/.fonts: skipping, no such directory
/var/cache/fontconfig: cleaning cache directory
/root/.fontconfig: not cleaning unwritable cache directory
fc-cache: succeeded



Strange it says o fonts.

It says 0 fonts because it's looking in the wrong dirs. Check /etc/fonts/fonts.conf and/or /etc/fonts/local.conf to see if any of them contains the paths to the X-fonts. The above are the default files made by fontconfig, if you have installed it somewhere else look accordingly.

I updated fontd.conf to include my font path, but X still does not start.


root:/usr/local/etc/fonts#fc-cache -fv
/usr/share/fonts: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts: caching, 0 fonts, 10 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/OTF: caching, 23 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF: caching, 13 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1: caching, 29 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/encodings: caching, 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/encodings/large: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/util: caching, 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/root/.fonts: skipping, no such directory
/var/cache/fontconfig: cleaning cache directory
/root/.fontconfig: not cleaning unwritable cache directory
fc-cache: succeeded

When you installed X, did you install font-misc-misc and font-cursor-misc?

When you executed fc-cache, fontconfig found fonts in /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts, but your xorg.conf.new has the font path at /usr/lib/X11/fonts. Where did you actually install the fonts? Did you install bdftopcf, mkfontdir, mkfontscale, and xcursorgen installed before you built and installed font-misc-misc and font-cursor-misc? Can't remember which one (IIRC mkfontscale) is required when building font-misc-misc and font-cursor-misc.

Where did you actually install the fonts?

-- I have the founts installed in both /usr/local/lib/X11 and /usr/lib/X11

Did you install bdftopcf, mkfontdir, mkfontscale, and xcursorgen installed before you built and installed font-misc-misc and font-cursor-misc?


-- Yes

Do you have /usr/lib/X11/misc/cursor.pcf.gz and a whole bunch of /usr/lib/X11/misc/*ISO8859*.pcf.gz files? Do you see any files, for example, 8x13.pcf.gz, that are 0 bytes in size? Do you have the file /usr/lib/X11/misc/fonts.alias and what is the alias font for fixed? Do you have that font installed? What are the permissions on /usr/lib/X11/misc and the font files?

Same questions for /usr/local/lib/X11/misc.

BTW, it's odd that you have fonts in two places if you followed the BLFS instructions.