WORKAROUND: Unable to load any usable iso8859 font

[Jon TURNEY]

ThinkDifferently wrote:
> My solution was, at the very least, to re-run setup.exe and to install the
> package "font-misc-misc".  Once I did that, XWin stopped hanging and xterm
> and xclock ran without a hitch.
> 
> I found this nugget of information buried deep in the 
> http://www.nabble.com/forum/Reply.jtp?post=21828473 Cygwin/X FAQ page ,
> section 9.4, sub-item 1.  To quote:
> 
> "You do not have a font package which provides the default font ('fixed')
> installed. This is rarely the problem; but in the event that it is the
> problem, just rerun Cygwin's setup.exe, select the font-misc-misc package
> and install it."
> 
> I find the phrase "This is rarely the problem" to be ironic, considering
> that it seems to be the most common, based on what I've read.

Well, in fact, this FAQ is obsolete.  The fixed font is now available built-in 
to the server, so it starts even when no font packages are installed (to avoid 
precisely this kind of configuration problem)

With 1.5.3-6 xserver, it should never happen that the server fails to start 
"could not open default font 'fixed'". (In fact, since 1.5.3-3, but there was 
a bug in libXft which caused it to fail to find 'fixed' after a server restart)

> The problem (lately) is that font-misc-misc is a prerequisite, but it is not
> (no longer?) flagged as one by setup.exe when you choose the various xorg
> packages.
> 
> The packages I installed were...
> + xauth
> + xclock
> + xcursor-themes
> + xhost
> + xinit
> + xkbcomp
> + xkeyboard-config
> + xmodmap
> + xorg-server
> + xrdb 
> + xterm
> None of these flagged font-misc-misc, but when I installed the font package
> manually, the above packages all started working.
> 
> BUG!

Yes, there is a bug.

Installing the "font-misc-misc" package is a workaround.

But, no, it's not the obvious packaging error that "font-misc-misc" should be 
in the dependencies for packages which use the 'fixed' font, as that font is 
now available 'built-in' to the server and the server starts with no fonts 
installed.

It seems the specific error message quoted "Unable to load any usable ISO8859 
font", comes from libXt [1], when it has failed to find the requested font, it 
tries a fallback of "-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*", which should match 
the always-available, built-in fixed font.

I have no problems starting xterm just using the built-in fonts

$ xset fp built-ins
[or start the server with -fp built-ins, or uninstall all font packages]
$ xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*"
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--12-120-75-75-c-0-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
$ xterm
[starts with no error]

So, why some people see this error is a mystery to me.  The first post in this 
thread seems to pin the blame on something which changed recently, possibly 
xserver 1.5.3-5, but I can't reproduce it and can't see any changes which seem 
likely suspects...

Entered into bugzilla
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9839

[1] http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libXt/tree/src/Converters.c

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