Strange X Font problems. Please help!

[the_isz]

Hi!

I've recently tried to install and set up Debian Linux. At first I tried Woody but I soon realized that it was very difficult to configure without having a working network connection (nforce2 board...). So I installed the newest Knoppix distribution (3.3) to my harddisk.

I guess I almost got the onboard nic drivers to work, but when I tried to start netcardconfig, I got strange error messages about having wrong fonts and so I can't set up my netcard.
These messages also occur when trying to start emacs (X version) or other programs that communicate with the X server.

I'll put out the messages at the end of this post along with my XF86Config-4 file, as I already googled to solve this problem and found some "solutions" that invoked changing the XF86Config-4 file.

I really hope somebody can help me, as I'm a Linux noob, but am pretty impressed by this OS (especially the debian distros).

Thanks in advance,

Timo

P.S.: Please excuse my english, as I only had it in school and never got to train it in reality.

/usr/bin/emacs error output:

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

xfontsel error output:

Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Segmentation fault

/usr/sbin/netcardconfig error output:

The font "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1,

-*-arial-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1,
-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-15,
-*-arial-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-15,*-r-*" does not support all the required character sets

for the current locale "de_DE@euro"

/etc/X11/XF86Config file:

Section "Files"
# FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
# FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "GeForce4 Ti-4200"
Driver "nv"
BusID "PCI:3:0:0"
VideoRam 65536
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Macom S82"
HorizSync 30-60
VertRefresh 50-75
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "GeForce4 Ti-4200"
Monitor "Macom S82"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

[Stephen]

You are missing the lines for the fonts in your font path section, here's what my section looks like:

Section "Files"
#       FontPath        "unix/:7100"                    # local font server
        # if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
#       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
#       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
#       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-bitstream-vera"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/ttf/western"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/ttf/decoratives"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

You should be looking for the proper paths in /usr/share/fonts/ttf and truetype and add the paths then re-start the X-server to have them available to be used. You should move the FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1" to the bottom of the section to have them used as the last fonts in the path and have the true type fonts above them so they are used first. If the fonts look to big and blocky you should move the 75dpi line above the 100dpi one in the XF86Config-4 and check in /etc/kde3/kdm/Xservers and change the -dpi 100 lines to 75 and re-start the X-server.

[edit]
You may want to look at this thread to see the file paths you should be looking for.
[/edit]

[the_isz]

yessssssssssssss!

Stephen, you're the greatest!

Though I didn't know what to do in the directories you pointed me to, I just put these into my XF86Config-4 file, restarted my X server an voila: It works!

And not only that you have solved the problem with the fonts, after doing what you said, I was able to run netcardconfig and now I've got a running network connection in debian!

yesssssssssssss!

For all who might have the same problem as me, here's my new XF86Config-4 file (the part that I changed):

Section "Files"
# FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ttf"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
# FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

Thanks again, Stephen!

Timo