On Fri, Dec 28, 2001 at 08:07:11AM -0600, Ted Spradley wrote: > Is the font server a relic from the days of small, expensive disks, so > you only need to store the fonts in one place on your network? Or does > it do something else that would be useful?
The X server is single-threaded, so the entire X server will hang while rasterizing a font. If you use a font server, this doesn't happen. Admittedly, this is a less serious problem in this age of fast machines. xfs might also be an advantage on a machine with multiple X servers running, centralizing the workload. One X server that needs a fond may find that the work has already been done by xfs on behalf of another X server. Finally xfs may be useful where you have a large and complex font installation at your site and you need to export them to multiple hosts and for some reason (perhaps due to licensing reasons), you can just copy the fonts physically onto the local disk of every X server. > I've never found a clear explanation of *how* to use it, let alone a > hint of *why* or why not to use it. How it works is pretty simple. On the font server side: Install whatever fonts it's supposed to serve. Set up /etc/X11/fs/config (or whatever path works on your box) as described in xfs(1). Run it with an init script. On the X server side: Put a reference to the font server in the "Files" section of the XF86Config file. -- G. Branden Robinson | The first thing the communists do Debian GNU/Linux | when they take over a country is to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | outlaw cockfighting. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Oklahoma State Senator John Monks
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