Xfree86 and vnc wouldn't start

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Sun, Sep 25, 2005 at 08:26:39AM -0400, Anthony Tekatch wrote:
> Hopefully this will save some people some time:
> 
> Xfree86 and vnc wouldn't start.
> 
> The vnc logs in ~/.vnc showed the following:
> =====================================================
> Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc, removing from list!
> Fatal server error:
> could not open default font 'fixed'
> =====================================================
> 
> Much Googling identified that problem might be artwiz-cursor and
> xfonts-artwiz packages. Removing them solved the problem.
> 
> I also had X.org installed and running fine but vnc includes it's own mini
> Xfree86, the Xfree86 font problem had to be solved.

Here is the debian irc channel's standard response when someone says X
can't find the font 'fixed:

11:25 <LSorensen> fixed
11:25 <dpkg> if you have a problem XFree86 it not finding 'fixed' font,
see fonts.alias, or /usr/share/doc/xfree86-common/FAQ.gz, or make sure
xfonts-base is installed, or purge and reinstall it, or see fontfix

So if your distribution has a package called xfonts-base or xfonts or
something similar, make sure it is installed.

rceng02:/var/www/debian386/kernel-source-2.6.8-16-486-rr_1# cat
/etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias |grep fixed
fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
etc...

That is where the font named 'fixed' comes from.

Without it, X won't run.

Lennart Sorensen
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