The 'unable to load usable ISO8859 font' problem is not isolated to xmessage; programs such as xfontsel can't find fonts either. The funny part is that there are lots of iso8559 fonts available: $ xlsfonts -fn '-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*' | wc -l 2918 $ xfontsel -pattern '-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*' Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font Error: Aborting: no font found