http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Debian/2004-03/1589.html

> Just did an update on a Sid machine and now xfree86 server isn't
> starting:

> Fatal server error:
> could not open default font 'fixed';

Ok, I only have ssh access right now, but this is interesting. Seems the Sid update created 8859-15 font aliases for me, but I don't have fonts to match. If I run update-fonts-alias it creates a fonts.alias file with 8859-15 encodings. I'm LANG=en_US so I should have 8859-1.

My /etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias file is listing 8859-15 aliases which don't map to any font files I have.

On my working laptop /etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias lists 8859-1 fonts.

Is xfonts-base broken?

On the broken machine: xfonts-base 4.3.0-5

$ grep ^fixed /etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias
fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15

$ grep misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15 /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/fonts.dir | wc -l
0

On this working Sid laptop: xfonts-base 4.3.0-2

$ grep ^fixed /etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias
fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

$ grep misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1$ /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/fonts.dir
6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

Bill Moseley

$ dpkg-deb -x /var/cache/apt/archives/xfonts-base_4.3.0-5_all.deb xbase
$ grep ^fixed xbase/etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias
fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

# apt-get remove xfonts-base
# rm -f /etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias
# dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/xfonts-base_4.3.0-5_all.deb
# cat /etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias
cat: /etc/X11/fonts/misc/xfonts-base.alias: No such file or directory