Re: Why use a font server?

[Juliusz Chroboczek <jch@pps.jussieu.fr>]

While everything that Branden has said is true, I feel that I should
also present the other side of the story.

Both the font server and the X server will keep a copy of all the
currently open fonts.  Thus, using a font server will double the
amount of memory you're devoting to fonts.

In a default configuration (not using -deferglyphs), the X server will
request a full copy of the font from the font server at font open
time.  Thus, use of an X server will defeat a number of optimisations
included in the XFree86 TrueType backend.

The font service code used to have some problems with dealing with
font server crashes, font server configuration changes, etc.  While
Keith Packard has fixed (all?) these problems in 4.0, I cannot help
feeling that use of a font server causes unreliabilities.

I don't like font servers.

                                        Juliusz