todays rawhide - feedback

[Mike A. Harris]

dragoran wrote:
> why is xfs started by default in runlevel 3 ? If I boot into runlevel 3 
> (=textmode) I do not need xfs (doubt that anybody needs it)

We have standardized on the X server installation using a font server
by default since RHL 5.x days, perhaps earlier, and all of the X config
infrastructure throughout the OS expects that you are using xfs to serve
fonts if you are using X at all.  This includes all of the font rpm
packages, which add their paths to the xfs config via chkfontpath.

xfs is started by default always, to ensure that it is running *if* you
run X, be that via gdm/xdm/kdm, or via "startx", as the X server will
not start if xfs is not running, unless you manually reconfigure the
X server to serve fonts directly.  While some users prefer to have the
X server serve fonts directly in this manner, this type of configuration
is not integrated well with the system the way our infrastructure is
set up currently.

xfs starts up quite quickly, and does not delay boot time by any
significant amount (unless you have 10000 fonts installed perhaps).
The benefit of having it start always, is that any time someone decides
to run X, xfs is already running and they needn't know about it nor have
to manually start it themselves.

One of the most frequently reported "bugs" years ago, was people filing
bugs about their X server not starting and getting the error message:
"Can't find font 'fixed'".  While that error can be caused by several
things, the most frequent reason it is happens, is because the xfs
font server is not running, and the X server expects it to be running
(in our xfs based method of installation).

Users who do not use xfs, and who are aware that it even exists, are
far more technically advanced enough to manually disable it from
starting at boot time themselves, and are less likely to file bug
reports about "can't find font fixed", because they're likely aware
what xfs is, and what they need to do if they start up X later and
it gives errors of that nature.

On the other hand, many people don't know that xfs exists or what it
is, and if they start their X server and get errors about "cant find
font fixed", they're more likely to be irate that X does not just
"work" as they expect, and they're also much more likely to file
bug reports in bugzilla about the problem.

 > I do not need xfs (doubt that anybody needs it)

Technically, nobody "needs" xfs.  You can run an X server without
a separate font server, if you correctly configure the X server to
do so first.   That however is not something we support out of the
box, and none of our font configuration tools are adapted to manage
systems configured in this manner.  So from a support perspective,
all systems that run X are expected to be using xfs, and also from
a support perspective xfs is enabled by default to cut down on bogus
bug reports received as indicated above.

Users who don't want xfs to run at bootup are free to disable it as
desired, however our current defaults are intentionally chosen to
run xfs at boot time, and there are no plans in the immediate future
of changing that.  In the future, if X.Org figures out a smart way
to have core fonts provided via fontconfig, and it is reliable, we
will probably consider disabling xfs by default, as that would
greatly simply the font subsystem(s), however while there has been
talk of this upstream for several years, no work has actually been
done towards that I don't believe.

We can all remain hopeful. ;o)

-- 
Mike A. Harris  *  Open Source Advocate  *  http://mharris.ca
                       Proud Canadian.