[RFC] Better font filetype and metadata file detection for xfs initscript

Mike A. Harris mharris at redhat.com
Wed Oct 15 12:20:34 UTC 2003


On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Thomas Dodd wrote:

>>>I'm curious about that. With out xfs, how do I share fonts between 
>>>machines?
>> 
>> Use xfs if you need it.  Or, use NFS or SMB.
>
>As a user I can 'xset +fp <blah>; xset fp rehash'.
>I cannot export/mount filesystems.

By default, the X server's font modules are not loaded (unless 
that changed without my knowledge).  So xset +fp will fail unless 
you've reconfigured the X server to specify the font modules get 
loaded.

xset +fp does not talk to the font server - it talks to the X 
server.

Anyway, as I said..  X core fonts are a legacy technology.  Users 
will be able to use them as long as the core protocol permits 
them.  However, desktops are moving more and more to client side 
fonts, and as this happens, over time, core fonts are going to 
become more and more irrelevant.  If you're using our GNOME or 
KDE desktop, you're using client side fonts and you're not using 
the font server for those applications.  xset fp options wont do 
anything for these applications.

At some point core fonts will be for the most part irrelevant.  
That doesn't mean nothing will use them anymore of course.  But
we will cross that bridge when the time comes.  I'm not saying
"Fedora Core 2 will not come with xfs" or anything like that, so
nobody really needs to convince me that they use xfs or need it.  
It's not going anywhere anytime soon.  The core font technology
is deprecated, or in other words "announced to be out of style"  
more or less, and new applications shouldn't use it.

The X server will have some fonts compiled right into the X 
server in the future, to ensure core fonts are supported at least 
minimally even if xfs is not running and no fontpaths are 
configured.

As for xfs, it will likely be included and enabled by default as 
long as it is needed, and doesn't present any major technical 
problems I would think.  Even if we were to disable it by default 
in Fedora Core 6 or somesuch, it doesn't mean it wouldn't be 
included.



-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat





More information about the fedora-devel-list mailing list