only six X11 fonts available

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES Configure-Administer
1

My server SLES12Sp1 is working quite well but I have troubles with X11 clients since
they (eg xterm) only have six fonts available.

xlsfonts returns only the following six fonts (and only them can be used by xterm):

-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–0-0-75-75-c-0-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–13-100-100-100-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
6x13
cursor
fixed

But I have a lots of installed fonts on my server!
fc-list|wc
1948 7460 152082

I read around that X11 fonts are different from “now standard” fonts, but I don’t know how to give X11 the fonts listed by fc-list
I hoped it was fonts-config but it doesn’t work:

fonts-config -v
Creating fonts.{scale,dir} files …
Creating cache files for fontconfig …
Creating 32bit cache files for fontconfig …
It is not a local display, do not reread X font databases for now
Generating java font setup …
warning: cannot find a Japanese sans serif font, Japanese might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Japanese monospace font, Japanese might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Japanese serif font, Japanese might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Simplified Chinese sans font, Simplified Chinese might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Simplified Chinese serif font, Simplified Chinese might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Traditional Chinese sans font, Traditional Chinese might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Traditional Chinese serif font, Traditional Chinese might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Korean sans font, Korean might not work in Java
warning: cannot find a Korean serif font, Korean might not work in Java

xlsfonts
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–0-0-75-75-c-0-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–13-100-100-100-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
6x13
cursor
fixed

Any help will be very apreciated,
ciao,
Emanuele

This is the list of X11 related installed rpm:
rpm -qa | grep -i x11 | sort
dbus-1-x11-1.8.16-19.1.x86_64
emacs-x11-24.3-16.32.x86_64
ghostscript-x11-9.15-6.5.x86_64
libQt5X11Extras5-5.5.1-3.2.x86_64
libX11-6-1.6.2-4.12.x86_64
libX11-6-32bit-1.6.2-4.12.x86_64
libX11-data-1.6.2-4.12.noarch
libX11-devel-1.6.2-4.12.x86_64
libX11-xcb1-1.6.2-4.12.x86_64
libX11-xcb1-32bit-1.6.2-4.12.x86_64
libqt4-x11-32bit-4.8.6-7.1.x86_64
libqt4-x11-4.8.6-7.1.x86_64
libxkbcommon-x11-0-0.4.1-3.1.x86_64
patterns-sles-x11-12-64.3.x86_64
perl-X11-Protocol-0.56-12.19.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-x11-5.0-2.7.x86_64
x11-tools-0.1-205.1.noarch
x11perf-1.5.4-1.15.x86_64
xorg-x11-7.6_1-14.17.noarch
xorg-x11-Xvnc-1.4.3-14.1.x86_64
xorg-x11-devel-7.6-45.14.noarch
xorg-x11-driver-input-7.6_1-11.10.noarch
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6_1-14.30.x86_64
xorg-x11-essentials-7.6_1-14.17.noarch
xorg-x11-fonts-7.6-29.45.noarch
xorg-x11-fonts-core-7.6-29.45.noarch
xorg-x11-libXpm-7.4-1.17.x86_64
xorg-x11-libs-7.6-45.14.noarch
xorg-x11-libxcb-7.4-1.29.1.x86_64
xorg-x11-proto-devel-7.6-49.97.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-7.6_1.15.2-51.2.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-extra-7.6_1.15.2-51.2.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-sdk-7.6_1.15.2-51.2.x86_64
xorg-x11-util-devel-7.6_1-7.15.noarch
yast2-x11-3.1.3-2.14.x86_64

2

Googling in a better way I found a nice solution on how let X use the modern fonts.
Here it is for whom might ever need it:

To browse the list of fonts use

fc-list :fontformat=TrueType -f "%{family}
" | sort -u

Test a font by specifyng in the xterm command -fa option

xterm -fa 'Luxi Mono' -fs 10

Where fa refers to the fonts face name, and fs, the font size.

Once happy with your font, apply to your application in ~/.Xresources
For example to apply for XTerm

! my customisations
XTerm*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono
XTerm*faceSize: 11

The final step is to set these resource changes using xrdb

xrdb -merge .Xresources

Thanks to who wrote https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1021
Emanuele

3

Hi
I still think your missing font packages, on my SLES 12 Sp1 system, I have many…;

xlsfonts |wc -l
12643

zypper se -i fonts

S | Name                        | Summary                                               | Type   
--+-----------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------
i | bitstream-vera-fonts        | Bitstream Vera(tm) Truetype fonts                     | package
i | cantarell-fonts             | Contemporary Humanist Sans Serif Font                 | package
i | dejavu-fonts                | DejaVu Truetype Fonts                                 | package
i | efont-unicode-bitmap-fonts  | Unicode Font by /efont/                               | package
i | fonts-config                | Configures Fonts for X Windows and other applications | package
i | ghostscript-fonts-other     | Optional Fonts for Ghostscript                        | package
i | ghostscript-fonts-std       | Basic Fonts for Ghostscript                           | package
i | gnu-unifont-bitmap-fonts    | The GNU Unicode Bitmap Font                           | package
i | google-opensans-fonts       | Humanist Sans Serif Typeface                          | package
i | intlfonts                   | Documentation for the International Fonts             | package
i | intlfonts-euro-bitmap-fonts | European fonts for the X Window System                | package
i | mkfontscale                 | Utility to create index of scalable font files for X  | package
i | xfontsel                    | Utility to display X11 font names                     | package
i | xlsfonts                    | Utility to list fonts available from an X server      | package
i | xorg-x11-fonts              | X.Org fonts                                           | package
i | xorg-x11-fonts-core         | Core Fonts for X.Org                                  | package

Might pay to check your installed font packages and may not have to use the work around?

4

Hi,
it seems I’ve more than yours! I have also Latex fonts (texlive*) which I exclude from the list:

[CODE] zypper se -i fonts | grep -v texlive
Refreshing service ‘Advanced_Systems_Management_Module_12_x86_64’.
Refreshing service ‘Containers_Module_12_x86_64’.
Refreshing service ‘SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_12_SP1_x86_64’.
Refreshing service ‘SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Software_Development_Kit_12_SP1_x86_64’.
Refreshing service ‘Web_and_Scripting_Module_12_x86_64’.
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…

S | Name | Summary | Type
–±----------------------------±------------------------------------------------------±-------
i | bitstream-vera-fonts | Bitstream Vera™ Truetype fonts | package
i | cantarell-fonts | Contemporary Humanist Sans Serif Font | package
i | dejavu-fonts | DejaVu Truetype Fonts | package
i | efont-unicode-bitmap-fonts | Unicode Font by /efont/ | package
i | fonts-config | Configures Fonts for X Windows and other applications | package
i | ghostscript-fonts-other | Optional Fonts for Ghostscript | package
i | ghostscript-fonts-std | Basic Fonts for Ghostscript | package
i | gnu-unifont-bitmap-fonts | The GNU Unicode Bitmap Font | package
i | google-opensans-fonts | Humanist Sans Serif Typeface | package
i | intlfonts | Documentation for the International Fonts | package
i | intlfonts-euro-bitmap-fonts | European fonts for the X Window System | package
i | java-1_6_0-ibm-fonts | Java™ 2 Runtime Environment | package
i | mkfontscale | Utility to create index of scalable font files for X | package
i | sgi-bitmap-fonts | Very Nice Bitmapped Fonts from SGI | package
i | xfontsel | Utility to display X11 font names | package
i | xlsfonts | Utility to list fonts available from an X server | package
i | xorg-x11-fonts | X.Org fonts | package
i | xorg-x11-fonts-core | Core Fonts for X.Org | package[/CODE]

nevertheless I always have few X11 fonts!
xlsfonts
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–0-0-75-75-c-0-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–13-100-100-100-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed–13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
6x13
cursor
fixed

I noticed my SLES12SP1 (which is a server, thus its graphical console is rarely needed) has no graphical console at all!
For sure it’s a problem I have to investigate, but I don’t know if it is relevant also for my X11 fonts problem.
/var/log/Xorg.1.log shows

[1214296.281] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"
[1214296.281] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
[1214296.281] (II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[1214296.281]   compiled for 1.15.2, module version = 2.3.3
[1214296.281]   Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[1214296.281]   ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 15.0
[1214296.281] (II) MGA: driver for Matrox chipsets: mga2064w, mga1064sg, mga2164w,
        mga2164w AGP, mgag100, mgag100 PCI, mgag200, mgag200 PCI,
        mgag200 SE A PCI, mgag200 SE B PCI, mgag200 EV Maxim,
        mgag200 ER SH7757, mgag200 eW Nuvoton, mgag200eH, mgag400, mgag550
[1214296.282] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
[1214296.282] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev
[1214296.282] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa
[1214296.282] (++) using VT number 7

[1214296.301] (EE) mga: The PCI device 0x534 at 08@00:00:0 has a kernel module claiming it.
[1214296.301] (EE) mga: This driver cannot operate until it has been unloaded.
[1214296.301] (EE) mga: The PCI device 0x534 at 08@00:00:0 has a kernel module claiming it.
[1214296.301] (EE) mga: This driver cannot operate until it has been unloaded.

It seems my video card has a problem. When the server was SLES11SP3 the graphic console worked properly.

I was trying to use SaX to investigate the driver problem, but I found out that SaX is not any more available (it was on 11P3)
May be it has been moved to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension (which needs a SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop subscription I don’t have) ?

Thanks again fro any help,
Emanuele