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Old 10-27-2004, 04:59 PM   #1
lukameen
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Registered: May 2004
Distribution: Slackware
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KDE 3.1 fonts are broken


I've been using slackware 9.1 for a while. I've read and searched on this forum and I've always found answers and solutions to my questions, but now it's time for my first post.

Problem: I changed my desktop font using KDE's control center. The result is all my fonts on the desktop, within Konquerer, applications, firefox--everything-- now looks like crap. I changed back to the default fonts, but something broke. After searching some related threads, all I could find (that I've tried) is to reinstall freetype fonts and I've reinstalled my NVIDIA driver. I tried some other minor stuff such as, using ms windows TT fonts, but everything still looks like crap. I can't seem to solve this one. I've been thinking of upgrading to slack 10, but I'm thinking that the font problem will probably follow along. Any ideas?
 
Old 10-28-2004, 02:11 PM   #2
tobyl
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For starters you could try experimenting with the anti-aliasing settings in KDE's Control Centre/Fonts.

tobyl
 
Old 10-28-2004, 02:32 PM   #3
lukameen
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Registered: May 2004
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Tried it, but didn't help. I'm almost ready to give up. I believe the problem is related to my fonts.config, and I'm trying to reinstall fontsconfig, but haven't quite figured out how to do it yet. The documentation is rather sketchy for this and google hasn't helped much either. I'll give it another day or so and if I cant get it straightened out, I'll reformat and install slack 10. That'll be six months of tweaking down-the-drain, but I can't stand these crappy fonts anymore.
 
Old 10-28-2004, 04:48 PM   #4
tobyl
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A few thoughts:

What happens when you chose a truetype font in the control centre? do you get the font you requested,
or just a blurry alternative (try it with a font you know you can recognise, I find verdana is very distinctive) does this font look bad with and without anti-aliasing?

Errors with the font server might turn up in /var/log/xfree86.log (or similar)

You could try reinstalling xfree86, maybe just the main package which I think is xfree86-4.3.0-i486-5.tgz in 9.1. This is the package that will contain the fontconfig stuff. I would reboot to runlevel 3 to do this, as you do not want to do it while X is running.

Also note that some
font stuff is configured by files in your home directory which I think would not get changed with
reinstalling the xfree package, eg .fonts.conf

If you rename the .kde directory in your home then when it starts up next time, you would start from scratch setting up kde preferences, but you could go back if it didn't help.

If the fonts are ok for root, then it must be something in your home directory causing the prob, otherwise it is more likely a system wide problem...

Do be careful, and make back-ups of important data before any significant changes to your system, but don't panic if something does go wrong, most systems are recoverable with a bit of care.

tobyl
 
Old 10-28-2004, 05:25 PM   #5
lukameen
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Registered: May 2004
Distribution: Slackware
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Thanks for the info. The fonts and everything are okay if I log into KDE as root. I have things setup to boot to run level 3 anyway because there are times I prefer to work from the console, and I like the option of being able to back out of the GUI. Your reply has given me some further insight and I thank you.
 
Old 10-28-2004, 06:29 PM   #6
lukameen
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Registered: May 2004
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 69

Original Poster
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tobyl, thank you very much. I tried renaming .kde in my home directory as you suggested, and removed and reinstalled xfree86-4... as you suggested. Unfortunately, it didn't work. However, you helped me to realize that this was a local problem and not a global problem. I deleted my user name and my home directory and then recreated them. Success! I don't mind setting up the KDE desktop again along with a few things associated with my user name. That's much less work than setting up a fresh slack installation. I was ready to do a fresh install of slack 10, but was not looking forward to it. I'm a network admin and have my slackbox setup on a local subnet. I've been using Linux for about a year. Started with Mandrake and fell in love with slack about 6 months ago. I'm on an active directory domain, but I'm getting ready to integrate some slack file servers. I've been experimenting and tweaking for quite a while. This was such a silly little problem and compared to some of the things I've had to overcome, it was nothing. But it drove me nuts. Anyway, I'll upgrade my box to 10 when I'm ready to spend the time with it, and in the meantime, I'm a happy slacker once again. Thanks again Bro.
 
  


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