.xinitrc and .xession not being read?

[Mike A. Harris]

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, Joshua Legbandt wrote:

>Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 07:35:03 -0700
>From: Joshua Legbandt <jtlegbandt at earthlink.net>
>To: fedora-test-list at redhat.com
>Content-Type: text/plain
>List-Id: For testers of Red Hat Linux beta releases
>    <fedora-test-list.redhat.com>
>Subject: .xinitrc and .xession not being read?
>
>Since I've upgraded to the fedora core 1 test series from Red Hat 9
>(originally to post severn rawhide) and started logging in through gdm,
>I've noticed that my .xinitrc and my .xsession (one is a symbolic link
>to the other) are not getting invoked. Specifically, I have the
>following lines that are not being executed via my .xsession:
>
>xset fp+ /home/finn/.xfonts
>xset fp rehash

Red Hat Linux by default uses "xfs" for serving fonts, and the X 
server is not used for serving fonts.  The "xset fp" commands 
tell the X server (not xfs) to manipulate it's fontpath and 
add/remove/refresh/etc. the X server font path only.  If your X 
server is not reconfigured to allow this to work properly, by 
enabling the various font modules in the Modules section of the 
X server config file, if you try to add font paths with xset to 
the X server and those FPEs contain fonts that the X server does 
not have a module loaded to handle, then the request will be 
ignored as the X server isn't capable of doing what you've asked 
in its current configuration.


>I've only noticed this now, not months ago, due to the fact that
>I am now using xterm to connect to certain hosts that behave
>funny when I use gnome-terminal. Had I never had to connect to
>the hosts, and hence use xterm, I probably would never have
>noticed this. Anyone have any ideas on why this is occurring?

You might want to put the fonts in ~/.fonts instead and use 
xterm with the -fa switch to get antialiased fonts using the 
fontconfig/Xft client side font mechanism instead of the aging 
legacy core fonts subsystem.

Hope this helps.

TTYL



-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat