X font server instructions

[Stephen Early <sde1000@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 17 May 1996, Olaf Erb wrote:

> Loading emacs freezes X11 completely for 
> about 5 seconds, with a.out everything slowed down during emacs-startup, too,
> but not like now. That's the price we pay for new features..

Maybe the new version of emacs is requesting more fonts? The X server 
doesn't multi-task while rendering fonts. If this is a problem, you 
should consider setting up a font server.

I suppose I should write some instructions on how to enable the font 
server in Debian. It's actually quite easy:

(assuming you're using a recent version of xbase and have all the font 
packages installed)
Add the line 'start-xfs' to /etc/X11/config
Run '/etc/init.d/xfs start'
Edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config file to include the line:
    FontPath    "tcp/localhost:7100"
in the 'Files' section.
Kill and restart your X server.

...although font rendering will still take time, the X server will not 
hang while it is happening.

Steve Early
sde1000@cam.ac.uk