Sorry if my formulation was overly provocative. I've seen you take a
more relaxed attitude in the past, and I was hoping it would be okay
with you. But it's November, and we're all losing our sense of humour
somewhat.
I'll stick to the dry facts, then.
MH> There are both circumstances where using a font server makes
MH> sense, and those where it probably makes more sense to use the X
MH> server itself.
There are three reasons why you don't want to use a FS:
(i) complicated configuration;
(ii) fragility (much improved by Keith in 4.1);
(iii) memory usage (all fonts held twice).
There are three reasons why you may want to use a FS:
(i) centralisation of font files (better done with NFS IMHO);
(ii) cases where the X server doesn't have a filesystem handy (not
an issue for a default RedHat install);
(iii) workaround for the server hang during rasterisation of large fonts.
As far as I am aware, the only reason why RedHat use a font server is
(iii). What bothers me is that they use a font server by *default*,
meaning that you get all users to pay the price, even those who do not
use large fonts.
It should be noted that the use of a FS is a workaround. A cleaner
solution would be to use the mechanisms already present in the X
server to prevent the hang from happening (tricky, but definitely
doable -- in fact, the data structures in the freetype backend were
designed with this in mind). An even better solution is to implement
lazy glyph rasterisation, which is exactly what Keith is doing with Xft.
What bothers me is that you should present your choice as being the
standard way of doing things -- what it is not, being merely a quick
workaround for a problem that your predecessors were not willing to
fix. While this may be a suitable trade-off for RedHat, it should not
be presented as anything more than a quick workaround.
>> Yours is a RedHat-specific reply. Debian do things more reasonably,
>> and don't require a font server by default.
MH> I don't consider that a fair statement at all. It implies that
MH> using a font server, is unreasonable,
It is my opinion that using a font server *by default* in a
general-purpose distribution is not reasonable.
MH> Distro politics [...]
This has nothing to do with distro politics. RedHat have made a
technical choice in an area that I am intimately familiar with that I
believe not to be reasonable. I do not think that publicly
disagreeing with a choice made by RedHat amount to indulging in distro
politics.
>> P.S. Mike, sorry for the out-of-context quoting. I know it's not
>> fair, but it was just too tempting.
MH> If you agree, that it was not fair, then why bring it up at all?
My out-of-context quoting was not fair. The comment above did not
apply to the text of my reply.
Regards,
Juliusz
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