Daniel Barclay wrote:
Well, I didn't specify anything. I haven't touched any of
/etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt, ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources, or given any
options on the command line Iused to invoke rxvt.
I am using whatever the CygWin packages and installer installed on my
machine, which evidently changes in non-intuitive ways when I re-run it
to modify the combinations of packages I have installed even though I'm
not (consciously) touching any X11 or font-related packages).
No. There is something else going on, but Ruby does NOT affect rxvt.
However, I suggest rather than blindly re-installing/un-installing
packages at random, you instead read the documentation.
/usr/share/doc/Cygwin/rxvt-20050409.README
Just now, I tried installing the ruby package, and as soon as I started
rxvt,
it started in messed-up form--widely spaced characters, in yellow, on a
dark
blue background--rather than the way it started immediately
before--normally
spaced characters, in black, on a white background.
"before" == default when rxvt can't find, and is not explicitly given,
any configuration information at all.
"after" == rxvt found the default system app-defaults file
(/etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt) but you do not have the fonts that it
specifies.
Either install the bitstream vera fonts in your Windows sytem, (e.g. go
to Control Panel/Fonts...
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/ttf-bitstream-vera/1.10/
Or change the specified font. You can do the latter by editing the
/etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt file itself, or overriding it for your
particular account by
(1) creating a ~/.Xdefaults file that specifies a different font
(2) explicitly starting rxvt with the '-fn <some font>' option
Does that color change give any hints regarding what's happening (what
unrelated thing got modified when I re-ran cygwin.exe to install Ruby)?
My guess is that rxvt's own postinstall script, which is supposed to
copy /etc/defaults/etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt into the actual
/etc/X11/app-defaults/ directory failed the first time you ran setup.
Then second time you ran setup, it tried again to run all the
post-install scripts that had not yet succeeded. This second time, it
worked, and you are now the proud owner of an /etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt
file, which rxvt.exe now finds.
Hmm. Those colors seem to match what's in
/etc/defaults/etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt:
Rxvt*background: #000040
Rxvt*foreground: #ffffbf
Rxvt*scrollBar: true
Rxvt*scrollBar_right: true
Rxvt*font: -bitstream-bitstream vera sans
mono-medium-r-normal--*-160-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
Rxvt*boldfont: -bitstream-bitstream vera sans
mono-bold-r-normal--*-160-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
Rxvt*saveLines: 10000
!Rxvt*loginshell: true
Rxvt.backspacekey: ^H
What's the command to determine which cygwin package installs that file?
cygcheck -f /etc/defaults/etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt
which will tell you it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, installed by the rxvt
package. However, that is the *default* version of the file. The actual
file that is used by rxvt at runtime is in /etc/X11/app-defaults/, not
in /etc/defaults/etc/X11/app-defaults/. It is copied from one location
to the other by (again, surprise!) the rxvt post-installation script,
which is automatically executed by setup.exe the first time you install
the rxvt package -- or every time you run setup.exe, until the script
succeeds if there were unexpected problems.
Is there a dependency problem in that that package does not depend on
the package
containing the font that that first package depends on?
No.
Most importantly, how to I get rvxt to work right (and consistently)?
Change the two lines that start with Rxvt*font and Rxvt*boldfont in
/etc/X11/app-defaults/Rxvt with the following (or override using
~/.Xdefaults). Each entry should be all on one line, and mind the space
between Lucida and Console (ditto Courier and New):
Either
Rxvt*font: -outline-Lucida
Console-normal-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1
Rxvt*boldfont: -outline-Lucida
Console-bold-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1
Or
Rxvt*font: -outline-Courier
New-normal-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1
Rxvt*boldfont: -outline-Courier
New-bold-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1
Alternatively, you can specify the font on the command line (but there,
you have to use "windows" names for the fonts, not the XLFD names above.
That is,
rxvt.exe -fn "Lucida Console-14" ...
or
rxvt.exe -fn "Courier New-16"
--
Chuck
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