Just to add one last thing, with the radeon driver you can use:
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
in your xorg.conf instead of "NoAccel" "True". This solved the font
issue for me and preserved 2d acceleration.
--- On Fri, 1/18/13, Dan DeVoto <dand1972@yahoo.com> wrote:
What graphics driver are you using? I had a similar
problem on a Sawtooth with an ATI 9000 with the text
displaying as a very light purple. The only solution I
found was to use the NoAccel option for the "radeon" driver
in my xorg.conf. Of course, after that I had a slow as
molasses desktop.