much of KDE freezes for 20 seconds (includes strace output)

[Rex Dieter]

Hans Ecke wrote:
...
> I'm still using the X Font Server xfs for fonts. Mostly because of 
> inertia - always used it, has a tuned config, continue using it. But xfs 
> dies for me. On some fonts from xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi. Strange. The 
> problem is reproducible with "xlsfonts -l". So konqueror times out in 
> its attempt to talk with xfs.
> 
> And some other background process (upstart?) kept restarting xfs every 
> 15 minutes because it found it dead. So my system still limped along 
> with an intermittently available xfs.
> 
> At this point I ran out of tuits. No fixing xfs. Instead I just disabled 
> xfs, instead using the buitin FontPaths catalogue /etc/X11/fontpath.d. 
> Now everything works fine. Bye old friend.

:)  Impressive detective-work, please forgive my nvidia-related doubts.

I recall having various issues with xfs dying too back in the f8 days, 
and it was never resolved... my perception being that upstream and our 
maintainers didn't care all that much about it anymore (legacy, 
deprecated stuff often gets that kind of treatment sadly).

Anyway, I too will give a few moments of silence (say ~ 20 seconds) for 
the passing of our common old xfs comrade.  Rest in peace, friend.

-- Rex