[Fontconfig] Problems going from RH8 to RH9

[Greg Jones]

Jonathan W. Smith wrote:

>Yesterday, I upgraded from Red Hat Linux 8.0 to Red Hat Linux 9.0. Things
>went relatively smoothly until a reboot of the machine resulted in an
>inability of the X server to load. Initially this seemed to be the result of
>incorrect monitor parameters.  After I corrected those settings, I still
>have a problem.
>
>I now get an error message that states, "No fonts found; this probably means
>that the fontconfig library is not correctly configured. I would add that I
>have /etc/fonts/fonts.conf; I lack a /etc/fonts/local.conf. Would I solve my
>problem by copying the fonts path to local conf, i.e. chkfontpath -l >
>local.conf, then edit local.conf so that it conforms to the XML format
>illustrated by fonts.conf?
>
>Thanks in advance for consideration of my request.
>
>Best regards,
>
>  
>
First, ensure that the X font server is set up correctly and is 
running.  You may want to
restart it.

Try removing the .fonts.cache-1 file from your $HOME directory and see 
if this solves it.

If not, login as root and do a

rm -f `find /usr/share/fonts -name 'fonts.cache-1'`
rm -f `find /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts -name 'fonts.cache-1'`
(note that ` is different from ' )

Then look at your /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file and look for the
<dir> statements.

Mine are

<dir>/usr/share/fonts</dir>
<dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF</dir>
<dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1</dir>
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>

but RedHat may look different.

then run ( as root ) the directories shown in these statements except 
for the ~/.fonts.

In my case

fc-cache /usr/share/fonts
fc-cache /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF
fc-cache /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type

RedHat probably has something different so change as necessary.

I have no idea what causes this problem but this tends to solve it for me.

Regards,

fc-cache