[Nix-dev] emacs-24.2: fontconfig related display problem

[Christopher Howard]

With further research: The problem seems to be (near as I can tell) that
emacs (through fontconfig) was looking for fonts in the standard X11 font
directory, but no such directory exists, because the host system does not
have X11. I was able to resolve this by using nix-env to install some font
packages (such as liberation-fonts) to my local nix-profile, and then
create a symbolic link with ln -s ~/.fonts ~/.nix-profile/share/fonts.
After that link was created, emacs opens up with the fonts in the menus
displaying correctly (near as I can tell).

So, problem solved for me. What I'm not sure about, though: Is this just
something I should be expected to do, because of my unique configuration,
or does this suggest some configuration shortcoming in the Nix expression
for emacs-24.2?

(BTW, in case anyone was wondering: even though the system itself is
headless (no X11) I use the X11 capable apps over SSH.)

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Christopher Howard
<cmhoward2 at alaska.edu>wrote:

> Hi. I just finished installing emacs-24.2. The graphical (gtk-based)
> version starts fine; however, the text in all the menus (including the
> tiles) is garbled (more specifically, replaced by empty box characters).
> The error given one the command line is:
>
> quote:
> --------
> (process:27651): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
>     Using the fallback 'C' locale.
> Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display "localhost:13.0".
> Fontconfig warning: line 26: empty font directory name ignored
>
> (emacs:27651): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly
> output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='latin'
> --------
>
> I am not very familiar with Fontconfig. Please advise.
>
> System information:
> Nix PM v1.3
> All packages built from source
> Local installation of Nix, Nix store dir, and Nix state dir (no admin
> privileges)
> System running SUSE Linux with kernel 2.6.32
>
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