08-24-2004, 04:54 AM | #1 |
Jack Burton
Join Date: November 10, 2001
Location: Bathurst & Orange, in constant flux
Age: 37
Posts: 5,452
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Distro: MandrakeLinux 9.0 , all default.
I can boot perfectly, and use the command line perfectly, but when I try to startx so that I can do wordprocessing, it gives me the following error: "Fatal server error: could not open default font 'fixed'". I've not been able to find any remedy for this problem by asking random people on MSN, or by googling. My first thoughts were to try to install Lycoris Desktop/LX, which we got on a magazine CD last month. But, the CD is non-bootable, and the Bourne Shell Script which I found on the CD complains that it 'Cannot connect to X Server'. So, I can't do that. Ok, I thought, I'll reinstall Mandrake. But, CD1 gives me a fatal error that a necesary file does not exist. Probably because those CDs ended up getting scratched... Anyway, I thought to install Windows 98 temporarily, and install Lycorus from it ( the CD autoruns on Windows) but the installer hangs, seemingly because it can't read a non-FAT formatted drive. I tried to FDISK it by booting with CDROM support, but that didn't work either: I can't create a DOS partition, because it seems to think I want to do it on the CD. And if I try to change the active partition (to the 6GB Non-MSDOS Partition, which is exactly what my harddrive is), it doesn't seem to change it. I know that just before it happened, I had cleared /tmp and ~/tmp , and I'm half thinking that this could have been what caused it... especially since I had problems with WindowMaker almost immediately after I did this - nothing was opening from the dock, and OpenOffice couldn't find a file that it's GUI filebrowser thought was there. So, I'm out of thoughts - how would I fix my problem? How do I get back into wordprocessing again? I *have* backed everything important up about an hour ago, and so I'm willing to try almost anything I can to get this working again. |
08-24-2004, 05:06 AM | #2 | |
Galvatron
Join Date: June 24, 2002
Location: aa
Posts: 2,101
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Do you have all the font packages. I'm using debian but that should be the same. I have these packages installed and it works fine:
Quote:
Hope this helps edit: one package was cut off and I can't quickly remember the command to widen the table so I added it manually [ 08-24-2004, 05:07 AM: Message edited by: philip ] |
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08-24-2004, 05:11 AM | #3 | |
Galvatron
Join Date: June 24, 2002
Location: aa
Posts: 2,101
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This is when I search for font there's more for X in there like the Xfontserver:
Quote:
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08-24-2004, 07:52 AM | #4 |
Jack Burton
Join Date: November 10, 2001
Location: Bathurst & Orange, in constant flux
Age: 37
Posts: 5,452
|
Ok, a bit more searching later, I followed the advice given here about this exact error, and it's fixed. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Now to do a bit of research and figure out if it will be worth it to switch to Lycorus... it has the obvious benifits of a non-scratched CD, and a newer kernel (since I don't have all three Mandrake CDs, I don't have alot of programs I need to compile the latest kernel...). I think I'll look at it tommorow - for now, I need sleep... |
08-24-2004, 09:08 AM | #5 |
Galvatron
Join Date: June 24, 2002
Location: aa
Posts: 2,101
|
Yep googling on the exact error often helps a lot. You don't need all CDs for a distribution. You can download anything after the first one. I only have 1 of the 7 or 8 debian CDs and I've never had trouble. BTW do you have to pay for lycoris? A lot of distributions can run KDE for free (or any other desktop environment or window manager for that matter) if you take some time to learn a bit in linux, which you probably have to do as most things won't be windows-like "next, next, next, ok" works. www.linuxquestions.org is a very good site and forum for anything
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