http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2009-02/msg00000.html Installing the "font-misc-misc" package is a workaround. But, no, it's not the obvious packaging error that "font-misc-misc" should be in the dependencies for packages which use the 'fixed' font, as that font is now available 'built-in' to the server and the server starts with no fonts installed. It seems the specific error message quoted "Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font", comes from libXt [1], when it has failed to find the requested font, it tries a fallback of "-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*", which should match the always-available, built-in fixed font. I have no problems starting xterm just using the built-in fonts $ xset fp built-ins [or start the server with -fp built-ins, or uninstall all font packages] $ xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*" -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--12-120-75-75-c-0-iso8859-1 -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1 $ xterm [starts with no error] So, why some people see this error is a mystery to me. The first post in this thread seems to pin the blame on something which changed recently, possibly xserver 1.5.3-5, but I can't reproduce it and can't see any changes which seem likely suspects...
I cannot reproduce this either with -6 or the pending -7. I even moved my /usr/share/fonts out of the way, started XWin then xterm: Warning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*" to type FontStruct Warning: Cannot convert string "nil2" to type FontStruct But no errors, and xterm runs.
I think I can reproduce this thanks to a conversation on IRC. If you install font-adobe-75dpi (and it's dependencies, font-encodings and font-alias) but *not* font-misc-misc, that seems to show the problem. Possibly fonts.alias causes the problem, somehow.
Yes, it seems xterm causes libXt to actually ask for ""-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*"", which will match "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-120-100-100-c-90-iso8859-1" or "-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-120-100-100-c-90-iso8859-1" lines in misc/fonts.alias (because that occurs before built-ins in the font path), which alias these to there 75dpi equivalents, but that doesn't match the actual built-in font. Not sure what the correct way to fix this is....
(In reply to comment #3) > Yes, it seems xterm causes libXt to actually ask for > ""-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*"", which will match > "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-120-100-100-c-90-iso8859-1" or > "-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-120-100-100-c-90-iso8859-1" lines > in misc/fonts.alias (because that occurs before built-ins in the font path), > which alias these to there 75dpi equivalents, but that doesn't match the actual > built-in font. > > Not sure what the correct way to fix this is.... Have libXt6 depend on font-misc-misc?
(In reply to comment #4) > > Not sure what the correct way to fix this is.... > > Have libXt6 depend on font-misc-misc? This fixes the specific problem, but I think the general issue is that misc/font.aliases can remap a font name which could be satisfied by the fixed built-in into one which cannnot, but misc/ will not provide the font unless font-misc-misc is installed. So you're basically back at having the server depend on font-misc-misc, unless you want to try wacky solutions like adding a 100 dpi fixed font (9x18, I think) to the built-ins, or adding a bunch of aliases to built-ins to map the aliases in misc/font.aliases back to 75dpi names...
I'm wondering if we should be looking at this differently. Right now, most fonts requires: font-alias font-encodings. I don't remember what I based that on, but is that actually necessary? Perhaps, instead of everything depending on font-alias, maybe we should treat font-alias as just another font package, but have it depend on everything it aliases to?
The deps for font-alias would be: 75dpi/fonts.alias: font-bh-dpi75 font-bh-lucidatypewriter-dpi75 100dpi/fonts.alias: font-bh-dpi100 font-bh-lucidatypewriter-dpi100 cyrillic/fonts.alias: font-cronyx-cyrillic font-misc-cyrillic font-screen-cyrillic misc/fonts.alias: font-adobe-dpi75 font-isas-misc font-jis-misc font-misc-misc font-sony-misc font-sun-misc That would be 13 of the ~40 font packages. Thoughts?
Ports SVN r5824: xorg/font-*: font-alias is not a dependency of any font, but font-alias depends on the fonts it references. We explicitely requires: font-misc-misc, so that libXt can find its fallback font. Fixes sourceware bug 9839. Fixed on sourceware as well; closing.