X.org: Fatal server error

[Harald Weis]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 12:29:13PM -0800, Joseph Olatt wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 10:37:02AM +0100, Harald Weis wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 10, 2008 at 06:13:33PM -0800, Joseph Olatt wrote:
> > > On Thu, Feb 07, 2008 at 01:44:03PM +0100, Harald Weis wrote:
 
> > > > 
> > > > A good reason in my case seems to be: all fonts.dir files are empty.
> > > > 
> > > > Running ``mkfontdir [-e encodings/] misc/''  creates always an empty
> > > > fonts.dir file, but with the '-e' option a correct encodings.dir file.
> > > > 
> > > > Conclusion: mkfontdir appears to be broken, or rather mkfontscale as
> > > > the former is just a single-line shell script.
> >  
 
> 1. Check "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc" directory to see if there are
>    font files there. In my case, that is where the fonts from package
>    "font-misc-misc" and "font-cursor-misc" got installed.  
>    (pkg_info -L font-misc-misc-1.0.0 would tell you where the fonts 
>     got installed.)
> 
> 2. Check the xorg.conf (/etc/X11/xorg.conf for me) to see if you have a
>    section similar to the following:
> 
>    Section "Files"
>        RgbPath      "/usr/local/share/X11/rgb"
>        ModulePath   "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
>        FontPath     "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
>        FontPath     "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
>        FontPath     "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/OTF"
>        FontPath     "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
>        FontPath     "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
>        FontPath     "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
>    EndSection
> 
> 
>    If the line 'FontPath     "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"' does not
>    exist, you could get the fixed font error.

I've done all these checks at the very beginning.
The only remaining problem was the empty fonts.dir file which fully
explains to my mind the fatal server error.
I then ran mkfontdir and saw that this command does indeed generate
an empty fonts.dir file on the bad machine where everything else
seems so utterly correct.
What I haven't done yet on the bad box (because it's not on my desk
and its external, stupid, ISP router does not let me in via SSH) is
to copy my fonts.dir file to it. Just for fun to see what happens.
I'll do that tomorrow...

In the last resort, I shall
portupgrade -fP -o x11/xorg xorg

But I hate the idea, it's so Unix-unlike, isn't it ?

Harald
-- 
FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE-p2 #0: Tue Feb 27 22:56:09 UTC 2007