On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 10:30:47PM +0100, A Mennucc <mennucc1@debian.org> was heard to say:
> hi
>
> I NMUd xarchon 0.50-10.1
>
> the new version fixes the bug
> 111342: Missing font prevents starting new game
>
> This bug was posted in 2001 as 'grave' but was then downgraded as
> 'normal' by the mantainer (who claimed that 'xarchon' would work with "a
> sane choice of fonts" installed in the system). I stumbled into that
> bug, while using a standard Etch install (with Gnome); and I did some
> tests, (adding some other font packages, and fiddling with Xorg conf)
> and I could not find a choice of fonts that would have 'xarchon'
> working; so I really think it should be considered 'grave'
>
> Then I prepared the patch: my patch adds a fallback,
> so that, if the font
> -misc-fixed-medium-*-normal-*-15-0-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
> cannot be loaded, it then tries
> -misc-fixed-medium-*-normal-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
> (and this usually works; but just in case, my code also has another
> subsequent fallback for 'fixed')
>
>
> Unfortunately I did not hear a reply from the mantainer; but I did some
> tests of my version, and it works; moreover, my patch is quite simple;
> so I really think that the new version should go into Etch.
That's partly because I was on vacation on the Olympic peninsula and
wasn't reading my email.
I'll take your word that this fixes this long-standing bug; one of the
major problems I had here is that I can't actually reproduce it in any
standard system configuration.
> Disclaimer: I do not really understand why
> -misc-fixed-medium-*-normal-*-15-0-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
> cannot be loaded, while
> -misc-fixed-medium-*-normal-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
> works.
I'm not an X font guru (which is why I had so much trouble with this
bug), but I actually have a clue for a change :). Apparently I never
before thought to dissect the font string, or I would have noticed that
it's asking for a font that is 0 points large. That seems moderately
bogus to me! In fact, I wonder why any system was able to come up with
a font that's both 15 pixels and 0 points large. Perhaps I'm not
understanding the full semantics of the font string?
Thanks,
Daniel
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