mats@alruna.UUCP (Mats Wichmann) (03/10/90)
(stuff deleted - lots of back-and-forth on getting fonts to an "X Terminal") >>|xset [-display display] +fp $XVIEWHOME/lib/X11/fonts/xview/misc >>| >>|does not add the open look fonts to your X11 server? All X11R4 compatible >>|servers should have these loaded in the default locations... >> >>We have several different types of X terminals. There are several >>different ways to download the fonts. Also - some fonts have to be >>built to match the architecture, and installed by the system manager. >All the X11 servers do not use the standard utility bdftosnf to >compile the font files? >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 itslef 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 complie 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. Esepcially 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". -mats wichmann