Indeed, the problem is libcairo2. Downgraded and things work fine...
(except that now all my package hierarchy is busted). Thanks for the
tip.
Here is a copy of the bug report I just submitted.
--------- Mensaje reenviado --------
De: ahg <ahg@servidor.unam.mx>
Para: submit@bugs.debian.org
Asunto: libcairo2 problem with non-anti-aliased text
Fecha: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 10:11:14 -0500
Package: libcairo2
Version: 1.2.0-3
Severity: important
I just upgraded my Sid box (2006-07-11), and all of a sudden all of my
gtk-based apps are behaving all wonky. Basically in menus and widgets of
all kinds, including text areas, most text is invisible after the first
space of any line. Then when the control is highlighted, or when I
select text in a text area, the missing text is suddenly visible again.
This does not happen with OpenOffice, nor with KDE apps, nor with gtk
apps running on a different machine and forwarded over to the X server
on this machine.
This only happens if I am using non-anti-aliased text. If I choose
anti-aliased text in the gnome control center, the problem disappears.
When I downgrade to libcairo2 1.0.4-2 the problem goes away completely.
I have to re-start applicaitons for changes to take effect.
It does not seem to matter what font I use. Changing to the POSIX local
also doesn't seem to make a difference.
Attached is a screenshot of the problem.
Kernel: linux version 2.6.15-1-686
libc version: 2.3.6-15