raster wrote this patch to provide the "fixed" font if the etheme's default font is not available. For an example scenario, start e with brushedmetal-tigert and a font server that does not have the Lucida font. e starts with no titlebar/menu/dialogbox/whatver fonts. The "fixed" font or whateveryoucallthenonfixed font (scaled?) is probably always there.
--- enlightenment-0.16.6-upstream/src/text.c 2003-11-05 12:58:51.000000000 -0500 +++ enlightenment-0.16.6-debian/src/text.c 2003-11-06 05:06:03.000000000 -0500 @@ -203,6 +203,13 @@ /* EDBUG_RETURN_; */ } if (!ts->xfontset) + { + ts->xfontset = + XCreateFontSet(disp, "fixed", &missing_list, &missing_cnt, + &def_str); + if (missing_cnt) + XFreeStringList(missing_list); + } EDBUG_RETURN_; ts->xfontset_ascent = 0; @@ -210,6 +217,8 @@ for (i = 0; i < font_cnt; i++) ts->xfontset_ascent = MAX(fs[i]->ascent, ts->xfontset_ascent); } + if (!ts->xfont) + ts->xfont = XLoadQueryFont(disp, "fixed"); } EDBUG_RETURN_; }