Re: x on my laptop problems
Quoting Bob Rowe (rrowe@winstar.com):
> I had the problem quoted below on the 430CDT after the base installation. I
> tried the apt-get statement cited in this email response--apt said the
> task-x-window-system-core was installed. I did apt-cache show to see if
> there were fixed fonts of any description on the machine and there were
> not. I also did a find with the same result. So I did apt-get update, then
> tried apt-cache show again. Nothing. I tried apt-get search xfonts* and
> still came up with nothing. Nichego. Nada.
A lot of these general error messages from X can be quite misleading,
as they describe symptoms, not causes.
> Today or tomorrow I will try RH7. That one, RH7, installed without a hitch
> on my home machine. Why is that? Why should one distribution install and
> another one will not? I presented my problems to this list and got some
> well-thought-out responses, but they didn't help.
Unfortunately it seems common for people to select their distribution
on the basis that it happens to install hitch-free; not the best in
my opinion.
> > >in my trying to apt all the right files for my laptop to run x, i seem to
> > >have missed somthing.
> > >
> > >when i attemt to run x...
> > >
> > >"Fatal Server error:
> > >could not open default font 'fixed'"
> > >
> > >what does this mean, and what do i need to do to fix it?
> >
> >It means you've neglected to install a necessary font package. The
> >simplest solution may be to 'apt-get install task-x-window-system-core'
> >which *should* pull in everything you need.
You can get this error message even with all your font packages
installed perfectly; for example, with a faulty XF86Config file.
The critical font package is xfonts-base, and IIRC the critical files
are in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/. In this directory, fonts.alias
should contain the line
fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
and this should correspond to fonts.dir's line
6x13.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
which should in turn mean that an entry
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4232 Jul 3 2000 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/6x13.pcf.gz
exists in that directory.
If you have no xfs daemon running, and no lines like
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
in /etc/X11/XF86Config, then the X server should run, with a warning
that it is using the compiled-in default fontpaths (and you can read
the X server's messages more easily by starting X with a line like
/usr/bin/X11/startx 2>$HOME/.startx.stderr).
If you now make sure that XF86Config contains AT LEAST the FontPath
line above (again assuming you're not running a font server), then
the X server should find a fixed font.
Cheers,
--
Email: d.wright@open.ac.uk Tel: +44 1908 653 739 Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail: David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
Disclaimer: These addresses are only for reaching me, and do not signify
official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.
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