Fontconfig Kernel Show-Stopper

enorbet · 11-20-2013, 01:00 PM

Greetings
Considering Intel seems to be pushing hard to get on a par with nVidia in Linux support, I recently decided to build a 3.12 kernel from source to replace the (working) 3.2.29,as Intel recommends latest kernel. To be clear, as I understand it, although they used 3.9.5 for the automated installer for such distros, they prefer newest stable for “source” distros. I have built many kernels from scratch, and yes, I don’t always meet with unqualified success, but eventually they work and I am pleased.

This time with the 3.12 kernel I met with what would seem a trivial error at first glance but it opened a can of worms about the need, or lack of need, for framebuffer support in general but in this specific case I’m getting

Code:

   Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/51-local.conf", line 7: junk after document element

If I understand correctly this is caused by enabling framebuffer support but not the downstream font requirements. So, my immediate question is how can I discover which item causes this show-stopper error. I’d prefer to keep it as clean as possible and not just enable everything that uses or can use framebuffer.

This brings up the larger question which is “If I NEVER use the framebuffer console for booting (default vesa is fine with me) do I need Framebuffer Support, at all?

Thanks in advance for any responses regarding this issue

guanx · 11-21-2013, 09:38 AM

Hi,

From your personal profile I see you are running slackware-current, which is not much different from slackware-14.1, I presume.

I was running slackware-14.1 on Linux 3.12 for a week and am on Linux 3.12.1 for almost one day with Intel graphics. Never saw this error. Could you give more details on how to reproduce this error?

enorbet · 11-21-2013, 10:30 AM

Hello and Thanks for responding.

First off I should apologize for 2 things - One, I haven't updated my profile in some time and so I'm actually on v14, not Current. Two - I suppose I was less than clear about the problem (which I solved last night) but that was likely because it seems to be an interactive problem, namely that remaining mess with Linux (yeah, OK sound too), all distros, having less than solid font control, so that almost any console function can error out trying to access garbage info. That, and in my case compiling a kernel with minimal framebuffer (and therefore minimal framebuffer font) support.

So I'm sure, now, that you know what I mean perhaps think of all the errors in Xorg.0.log of fonts that can't be found or even worse, look in /etc/fonts/conf.d and see how many are stubs and workarounds. The specific error I was getting, that actually caused a kernel "make" to error out was the one in the code window on my original post. All I had to do was create a local.conf file as per Dugan Chen's excellent treatment of all matters font here - http://duganchen.ca/writings/slackware/fonts/

Then I simply deleted "/etc/fonts/conf.d/51" entry and ran

Code:

 fc-cache -f -v

both as root and user. I did also decide to keep some framebuffer font support and it didn't take too long to pick 5 and get a working 3.12 kernel. It is sweet, isn't it?!

I suspected I might fix this first little hangup before many responses came in but it is probably due to my "puffing myself up" for all the installations required to get full acceleration (well, "full" such as it is with Intel for now) as per Intel's dedicated Linux Graphics site, here https://01.org/linuxgraphics/ so I will likely be posting more loosely regarding the installation of the best that Intel has yet to offer.

An aside, it appears that Intel has done their homework and realized that ATi is still a pita for Linux users and as much high quality nVidia has essentially donated for so long, they met with considerable backlash over time for not releasing as Open Source. Apparently this smells of opportunity to Intel. Good!

phenixia2003 · 11-21-2013, 10:32 AM

Hello,

Quote:

Originally Posted by enorbet

This time with the 3.12 kernel I met with what would seem a trivial error at first glance but it opened a can of worms about the need, or lack of need, for framebuffer support in general but in this specific case I’m getting

Code:

   Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/51-local.conf", line 7: junk after document element

There's probably an unclosed element in your 51-local.conf file, or in the local.conf file included at runtime by this configuration.

On my side, 51-local.conf contains the XML below, and I have no local.conf :

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
        <!-- Load local system customization file -->
        <include ignore_missing="yes">local.conf</include>
</fontconfig>

If I open a new element at the end of this file, I have the same "junk" error :

Code:

$ echo "<include>" >> /etc/fonts/conf.d/51-local.conf 
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/51-local.conf", line 7: junk after document element

For each opened element (i.e <ELEMENT_NAME>) in your 51-local.conf (and local.conf if any), check if it's correctly closed (i.e </ELEMENT_NAME>)

Hope this helps.

--
SeB

enorbet · 11-21-2013, 12:14 PM

Hello and TY for your excellent response. You may be right and it does make sense that it was an unclosed element but if so it did that on it's own. I don't mess with fonts much at all, and frankly barely knew "/etc/fonts/conf.d" even existed until now. If I can read it it's all good. Reading what I just wrote makes me think I've either gotten lazier or have too many projects for fonts to even show up on radar. I recall way back when the Matrox Millenium came out and booting into OS/2 Warp 4 with my new Matrox card quite literally took my breath away with the leap in contrast and clarity.

So if it was indeed some code fluke, maybe in the future I can fix it properly instead of just sweeping it out of the way. For now I'm just happy to have a nicely working custom 3.12 kernel and "gearing up" for the major update to Mesa, libVA et al.