Emacs.font:fixed That's the offensive one. Oddly enough, if I replace the font in .Xdefaults with most anything else, 7x13 for example, it works. If I then run it with 'emacs -fn fixed', I get the same error. Several other fonts fail also; I don't know what's their common denonimator. I fear this bug is specific to the Debian elf emacs. Guy