Re: [OT] Why does X need so much CPU power?

[Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org>]

Erik Steffl <steffl@bigfoot.com> writes:

>> There is no central font management. For some time now, X seems to
>> support 
>
>    what do you mean? you have font server (standalone or just use X
>    server). how much more central can you get? BTW AFAIK there's no
>    way to have standalone fontserver for windows.

Since the font server can only deliver bitmaps to clients (even
though it can read outline fonts, it rasterizes them before sending
them over the wire) it isn't helpful to many programs.  Any program
which wants to antialias, use outlines, or send decent stuff to a
printer needs its own access to fonts.  Any program which wants more
metrics than the X font protocol provides needs its own access to
fonts.  So, if you have a new font, you may need to tell
OpenOffice.org about it, X about it, GS about it....

This is gradually getting better now that we have fontconfig, which
hopefully gives all the info all apps needs, but to suggest that xfs
is sufficient merely shows you haven't done much with fonts.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - I am the rocks.
Bank on God for a higher rate of interest.