[Wylug-help] X fonts

[Dave Fisher]

Dear all,

My Xorg.log (below) reports a "Fatal server error:
  could not open default font 'fixed';".

I've seen the symptoms before, but they've often been manifestations
of different underlying problems ... in some cases, just bad
packaging, in others oversights on my part (e.g. inadvertently
disabling a font server).

I'm afraid that the xfont system and its debian/ubuntu implementation
are two of those things I've always planned to learn properly, but
never quite got round to ... not least, because of their apparent
complexity and my inability to find one good high level overview to start
from.

It may be unrealistic of me to hope for pointers to such a document, but
if anyone recognises the symptoms, or can just describe the standard
debian setup for the key components (font servers, defoma, fontconfig,
xfonts-base, etc), I'd appreciate it. For example, which of the many
packaged font servers should I actually be using these days?

Dave

=========
Xorg.log
=========
Warning: font renderer for ".pcf" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".pcf.Z" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".pcf.gz" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".snf" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".snf.Z" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".snf.gz" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".bdf" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".bdf.Z" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".bdf.gz" already registered at priority 0
Warning: font renderer for ".pmf" already registered at priority 0
Could not init font path element /var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType, removing from list!

Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed';
the X server's font paths might be misconfigured, remote font server(s)
may be unreachable, and/or local fonts may not be installed or are not
configured correctly.

==========
Xorg.conf
==========
Section "Files"
        FontPath        "unix/:7101"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/CID"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"
        # paths to defoma fonts
	FontPath	"/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
	FontPath	"/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
EndSection