hvr@kimba.Sun.COM (Heather Rose) (03/17/90)
In article <104@alruna.UUCP> mats@alruna.UUCP (Mats Wichmann) writes: > >>I suppose the whole fonts issue will become simplified when the font server >>concept is finalized, implemented, and adopted... > >Specific example here: > > an Acer X Terminal uses a font file in a different format than most > UNIX boxes, even if the file itself is on a UNIX box (it's essentially > a DOS file since the terminal is a PC), so installing in the "standard" > place doesn't solve the problem; you need to compile another copy and > put it someplace else for the X Terminals. > >X Terminals may not have a good way to get access to fonts which are loaded >on some other machine, if "X Terminal" means "X Server Device without disk >which is not necessarily running UNIX and/or NFS". Most X Server people >have had to invent some way to do this, be it TFTP, NFS, or some >proprietary protocol between the terminal and a server program somewhere. >There is another class of device to consider as well - the PC being used as >an X Terminal - different because there is local disk, so they don't need >to access fonts remotely (hah!). In this case, the font source must be >downloaded and compiled with a local bdftosnf utility. Despite the >presence of a "builtin" xset, I haven't always had good luck having the >server find them. In fact, when I spent some time on it, I couldn't get >either the Locus or the GSS server to run olwm, because of not being able >to find fonts. I expect the problem could have been solved, but it was >certainly an irritant. I had some interesting problems with the Acer X >Server, I'm not supposed to talk about that, so I'll pass. > >The font server _will_ take care of this problem, when it is finalized, >implemented, and in widespread use (when?). Which is why all of us X >Terminal people need it so badly. Especially because it is hard to >justify your own solution in the face of the other competing ones. Any >of you remember, for example the criticism of NCR's X Terminal because >you "have to run some sort of funky font server program on your host". Different companies have different solutions. Someone from Visual claimed that their X terminal server can decipher any font format. I saw a demo of GraphOn the other day. Since the server runs native on the host machine, I would imagine that fonts would not be an issue. And NCD distributes a special source for bdftosnf which will create the font in a format that the terminal will understand. In general, I sympathize with people who may have to provide multiple fonts directories for multiple architectures. Providing a font server in the meantime has it's drawbacks, but it may be the lesser of multiple evils. __________________________________________________________________ Heather Rose Window Systems Group internet: hrose@sun.com Sun Microsystems, Inc. uucp: ...!sun!hrose