Guest Violator Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 Basically my X server refuses to start reporting an error that says something like this ' Failed to load default font "fixed" ' So how did I run into the problem? Well, I am very fond of the Verdana and Tahoma fonts from Windows and I used the Font Installer in the Mandrake Control Center to install them. It all went well. But I was surprised that when I turned antialiasing off and restarted X both Verdana and Tahoma fonts were not displayed cleanly in Mandrake. Btw, if someone knows how to make the X server display those fonts as they are displayed in Windows, please let me know. But let's get back to the serious problem. When I saw the fonts looking jagged, I decided to get rid of them.. And again started the Font Installer in the MDK Control Center. I selected the Verdana font and clicked Uninstall and the control center window just disappeared (as if some kind of crash happened). Then I decided to restart X and logged off from KDE. This was the last time I had working X server. After that the error mentioned above became appearing and I now can't start X. What's going on and is there a way to fix this font problem through the console?? I'd be grateful if someone could help me. Thanks in advance! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 as root try running: fc-cache -v and then start x, see if that helps any. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Violator Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 I tried it but it didn't help.. :( BTW, I wrote down exactly the message (I think it has changed a bit from the last time- weird :unsure: ): --- Fatal server error: could not open default cursor font 'cursor' --- Thanks for your fast reply though!! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devries Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 (edited) You use the font server? When you are in a terminal you can start it by typing '/etc/init.d/xfs start' as root. (without the ''). If it's started try xfs restart (or status for the status :) ) Edited May 28, 2004 by devries Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Violator Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 (edited) The X Font Server is working I suppose because on boot in displays [ OK ] :unsure: And when restarting it also shows [ OK ] when stopping it. I tried the switches you mentioned but they don't seem to work- instead the usage for xfs is displayed when I try xfs restart (or status or start). I also tried something else which (I think) shows that the font server is working. I killed it with "killall xfs" and then when restarting it showed [ FAILED ] next to Stopping X Font Server. After killing it I tried to start it with "xfs" but it hanged- I suppose this is not the correct way to start it.. :? I also tried "startx" after I killed xfs and it didn't work as expected.. But as I said I suppose the X Font Server works well (although I'm not sure).. Edited May 28, 2004 by Violator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 what is the output of rpm -qa | grep XFree86 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 oh, and try service xfs stop service xfs start you can not killall xfs or most sys-services for that matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devries Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 euh no... That's not the correct way. This is (one of the correct ways :) ): as root: /etc/init.d/xfs start (for start) /etc/init.d/xfs stop (for stop) /etc/init.d/xfs restart (for restart) /etc/init.d/xfs status (for status) and read this. Good luck :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 euh no... That's not the correct way. what distro do you use? This is madrake. The path to was tried. I was just suggesting mandrakes service command be tried. The end result is to be the same, and I have not read the scripts to see if there's a diff between /thepath/to and service but why would you say it is not correct? That's like saying init 3 is the only correct way to get out of X and to console/init 3. Did you try it? It is correct! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devries Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 My comment was aimed at Violator I suppose this is not the correct way to start it.. :? Sorry for the missunderstanding. Your option using service works does the same thing :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 (edited) My comment was aimed at Violator I suppose this is not the correct way to start it.. :? Sorry for the missunderstanding. Your option using service works does the same thing :). me sorry as well! :D I thought you were referring to my post. Sorry! [edit] actually I should have looked at the post times and known that your comment was aimed at Violator....SORRY! Edited May 28, 2004 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 the easiest way around this if you do not need to serve font's for other machines on a net is to #comment out the default font "fixed" service xfs stop put the paths to the font dirs (example from above link) FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/" startx if it works do chkconfig xfs off to stop xfs from running at boot and add any other font dirs you may have. Now you have one less service running and a lighter/faster X, IMO. Note: there have been times in the past that I've done this and the fonts are not as nice, and further tweaking is needed, which is a pain. I then just uncomment the default font fixed, remove the dirs and run xfs again to get the nice fonts back. Hey, I'm lazy ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Violator Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 I edited the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file with emacs and added the FontPaths. However, the weird thing is that my /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc doesn't exists.. I have the Speedo, Type1, TTF, 75dpi, 100dpi... directories but misc is not there. And as far as I understood from HERE this exactly directory is very important for the X start. And of course my X server still doesn't want to start reporting the same errors... I have no idea whether this directory has ever been there and don't know where else it can be located. I spent more than an hour browsing the directories and I didn't find it anywhere... This is weird.. I suppose I will have to re-install my whole box, but the worse thing is that I have been customizing it for more than 2 weeks... Anyway, thank you all for your help! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 29, 2004 Report Share Posted May 29, 2004 DON"T REINSTALL!!!! I'll be right back!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 29, 2004 Report Share Posted May 29, 2004 (edited) Yes, that is where the default fonts are! X has to have them. The easiest way to fix that is to force the uninstall of XFree86 and reinstall. The other is to force the reinstall of the pkg. /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/cursor.pcf.gz is part of the XFree86 pkg [root@localhost root]# urpmf /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/cursor.pcf.gz XFree86:/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/cursor.pcf.gz [root@localhost root]# rpm -qa | grep XFree86 XFree86-server-4.3-32mdk XFree86-75dpi-fonts-4.3-32mdk XFree86-4.3-32mdk XFree86-xfs-4.3-32mdk In X now, I will do this in a terminal to show you how. [root@localhost root]# rpm -e --nodeps XFree86 [root@localhost root]# rpm -qa | grep XFree86 XFree86-server-4.3-32mdk XFree86-75dpi-fonts-4.3-32mdk XFree86-xfs-4.3-32mdk [root@localhost root]# urpmi XFree86 ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandrakelinux/devel/cooker/i586/Mandrake/RPMS/XFree86-4.3-32mdk.i586.rpm installing /var/cache/urpmi/rpms/XFree86-4.3-32mdk.i586.rpm Preparing... ################################################## moving /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb to /etc/X11/xkb linking to ../../../../etc/X11/xkb moving /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/compiled to /var/lib/xkb linking to ../../../../../var/lib/xkb moving /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xserver to /etc/X11/xserver linking to ../../../../etc/X11/xserver moving /etc/X11/xdm/authdir to /var/lib/xdm linking to ../../../var/lib/xdm 1:XFree86 ################################################## [root@localhost root]# All done.....of course if you are using the cd's as your sources then you'll be prompted to insert the cd. Edited May 29, 2004 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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