hi, i have installed a lot of debian systems and this one is the strangest and most frustrating issue i've ever come across, and i seriously need help or i will blow this machine away with a reinstall.
yes, that's right - a debian system that i will be forced to treat as lowlife scum like windows: if problem, solution equals reboot. if still problem, solution becomes trash-it-and-reinstall. okay, here goes. this is with latest unstable (i did an apt-get dist-upgrade today, 20apr2004) but i've seen it happen from at least january 2004. symptoms -------- some fonts on _some_ applications get reduced to single pixels! it makes those appilcations (like... kdm) completely unusable. i've NEVER seen this occur on ANY other machine, and i've installed A LOT of debian systems. reproducing ----------- the means to reproduce the problem (on my machine) are to use: - fvwm with the following (default, from the 95 style) section in the ~/.fvwm/decorations file: #WIN 1 Style * Font "xft:sans-serif:Medium;-*-times-medium-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" #FVWM 1 #Style * Font "xft:sans-serif:Medium;-*-times-bold-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" Style * IconFont \ "xft:monospace:pixelsize=12:Medium;-*-fixed-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" - gdm and the entire gnome environment - kdm and the entire kde environment the means to AVOID the problem is: - to NOT set any styles in fvwm, or to use the version of fvwm that doesn't provide any themes (i think fvwm has been updated in the past couple of weeks, i'm still using and quite happy with fvwm with the 3x3 grid thing in the corner) - to use wdm or xdm AS SOON as you install gnome or kde, even the applications such as mozilla and mozilla-firefox get stuffed. i had forgotten that back in january i had installed gnome, come across this problem, wiped out gnome again (a really difficult task, if you've ever tried! you have to do apt-get remove xlibs and then reinstall the entire x-window-system and all your apps again!) and then began again. and the problem went away (even when i then installed evolution which pulls in the gnome conf / management stuff). then, today, i installed kde (not gnome).... and shafted the fonts again. a bit of debugging ------------------ about the only clue that i have is from running strace -o log.txt -ff /etc/init.d/kdm start: read(7, "b\0\6\0\17\0$\0XFree86-Bigfont\0", 4096) = 24 read(7, 0x87886a0, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable) writev(7, [{"\1\0\231\1\0\0\0\0\1\231\0\0\0\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\7\0\0\0\30"..., 32}], 1) = 32 gettimeofday({1082654014, 914704}, NULL) = 0 select(256, [1 3 6 7 8], NULL, NULL, {595, 611000}) = 1 (in [7], left {595, 620000}) read(7, "\231\0\1\0", 4096) = 4 geteuid32() = 0 getegid32() = 0 read(7, 0x87886a0, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable) writev(7, [{"\1\1\232\1\0\0\0\0\1\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0v\274\30&\30"..., 32}], 1) = 32 gettimeofday({1082654014, 915149}, NULL) = 0 select(256, [1 3 6 7 8], NULL, NULL, {595, 610000}) = 1 (in [7], left {595, 610000}) read(7, "-\0\22\0\"[EMAIL PROTECTED]:\0\0\0-sony-fixed-medium-r"..., 4096) = 84 open("/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/8x16.pcf.gz", O_RDONLY) = 9 read(9, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"..., 8192) = 4744 --- SIGALRM (Alarm clock) @ 0 (0) --- sigreturn() = ? (mask now []) read(9, "", 8192) = 0 brk(0) = 0x8795000 brk(0x87b8000) = 0x87b8000 close(9) = 0 select(256, [1 3 6 8], NULL, NULL, {0, 0}) = 0 (Timeout) read(7, 0x87886a0, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable) writev(7, [{"\1\1\234\1\247\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\10\0\377\377\365\377\0\0\34"..., 1724}], 1) = 1724 gettimeofday({1082654014, 951008}, NULL) = 0 select(256, [1 3 6 7 8], NULL, NULL, {595, 574000}) = 1 (in [7], left {595, 570000}) read(7, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]:\0\0\0-sony-fixed-medium-r"..., 4096) = 84 read(7, 0x87886a0, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable) writev(7, [{"\1\1\236\1\247\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\10\0\377\377\365\377\0\0\34"..., 1724}], 1) = 1724 gettimeofday({1082654014, 952059}, NULL) = 0 select(256, [1 3 6 7 8], NULL, NULL, {595, 573000}) = 1 (in [7], left {595, 580000}) read(7, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]@\0", 4096) = 16 read(7, 0x87886a0, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable) writev(7, [{"\1\0\237\1\3\0\0\0\"\0\0\0\1\0\1\1\377\377\377\377\0\0"..., 76}], 1) = 76 which seems to indicate that file descriptor 7 is having difficulties providing me with fonts (EAGAIN - Resource temporarily unavailable). (this could well be the font server). but i could be completely wrong about that. anyway, if anyone has _ever_ come across such an utterly weird issue, and wants to have a go at recommending something to fix it, you have about one week before i shamelessly kill maim and destroy the box by copying its hard drive. bizarrely enough, its identical twin (i copied the hard drive and then did an apt-get upgrade once the copied drive was in the second box) is absolutely fine! i give up. l. -- -- expecting email to be received and understood is a bit like picking up the telephone and immediately dialing without checking for a dial-tone; speaking immediately without listening for either an answer or ring-tone; hanging up immediately and believing that you have actually started a conversation. -- <a href="http://lkcl.net"> lkcl.net </a> <br /> <a href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"> [EMAIL PROTECTED] </a> <br /> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? 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