很多linux用户有如此一个惨痛经历。当你和平常一样登陆和输入这可爱的startx时，你只是接收到错误信息。

Many of us gnu/linux users have had such a terrible experience. When you
很多linux用户有如此一个惨痛经历。当你
login and type the sweet startx as usual, you only receive scrolling lines
和平常一样登陆和输入这可爱的startx时，你只是接收到
of error messages. One copy of the error message is usually stored in
错误信息。错误通常存储在
/var/log/XFree86.0.log. If you can access the log file, you will notice
/var/log/XFree86.0.log。如果你读取这个日志文件，你将会注意到
the last lines of the file may look like this:
文件的最后一行通常如这样：
Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!
Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed'

I have to admit that I was in panic when I saw this message in the first
我不得不承认我感到恐慌当我最初几次看到这些信息。
several times. As an intermediate user of linux system, I was not so
作为一个中级的linux系统用户，我感到用命令控制台拨号和用lynx冲浪不
comfortable using text console for modem dialup and surfing with lynx. So
舒服冲浪。所以
I had to spend a lot of time on another box and use Google to search for
我不得不花费很多时间在另一台电脑的使用Google在网上搜索帮助。
help on web. It was amazing that so many people like me have this exact
另人感到意外的是如此多人像我一样拥有如此
terrible experience and those replies in web forums and mailing lists
恐怖的经历和那些网上论坛和邮件列表的答复
generally offer more sympathy than real help. Using our common sense and
一般提供更多的同情心而不是真正的帮助。用我们一般的理解和
some research, most of us can figure out this failure has something to do
研究，我们大部分可以判断这是X字体服务的失败。
with X font server.

After having done a little more research, now I believe that this failure
做完进一步的研究之后，我现在相信这
may not be so serious as it looks. Please follow me by doing the steps
不像人们想象中的那么严重。请跟着我做下面的这些步骤，
below, in most of the cases you will get your X windows starting up again.
在大部分的案例中你将可以重新进入X windows。
Note: The following examples run on my Red Hat box. But I believe they are
注意：这些例子在我的Red Hat系统上。但我相信他们
general enough to be used for other distributions.
通常足够应用在其它发行版上。

1. Check if the X font server is running.
1、检查X字体服务是否正在运行。

Some people like me tend to suspect it is caused by bugs in the X font
一些人像我一样趋向于怀疑这是由X字体服务的bugs引起的，
server, but it turned out that X font server is quite robust. We can run
但它证明这X字体服务是良好的。我们可以运行
the xfs script under /etc/init.d to see if the font server is running.
这xfs格本文件夹在/etc/init.d去看是否字体服务正在运行。

[root@localhost /root]# /etc/init.d/xfs status
xfs (pid 1385) is running...

In some cases, the only reason for the failure is that the font server is
在一些案例，唯一失败的原因是字体服务停止
dead. So, you need to restart font server like this:
所以，你需要重新启动字体服务象这样：
[root@localhost /root]# /etc/init.d/xfs start
Starting xfs: [ OK ]

Well, my learned lesson is don't take this '[OK]' for granted. You have to
好，我的学习课程不承认OK是真的。你必须
check the status again to see if it is running. If it does run, you can
再次检查状况去看看是否正在运行。如果它不运行，你可以尝试
try startx to see if you can start X windows. If you still cannot start X
startx去看看是否可以开始X windows。当字体服务运行时，如果你仍然不可以运行X
server when the font server runs, it means you are having more serious
服务，它意味着你拥有更严重的错误。
trouble. You need to waste a little more time reading on the following
你需要花费更多的一点时间阅读以下的步骤。
steps.

Note: In a weird case, my root partition was fully filled by two huge log
注意：在一个古怪的案例，我的根目录是被两个大于2GB的信息文件所占据满的。
files occupying more than 2 GB. The font server dies when it cannot write
当它不可能写进/tmp字体服务停止。
to /tmp. So the simple solution was finding the huge files and deleting
因此一些例子的解决办法是寻找巨大文件的删除掉他们。
them.

2. Check if the font 'fixed' is accessible.
检查是否字体“fixed”可以理解的。

Now it is time to ensure that the font 'fixed' is accessible. First, we
现在是时侯确保字体“fixed”是受影响的。首先
can use command fslsfonts to see if font 'fixed' exists in the search
我们可以运行命令fslsfonts去看是否字体存在在所寻找的路径：
path:

[root@localhost alex]# fslsfonts -server unix/:7100 -ll -fn fixed
DIR MIN MAX EXIST DFLT ASC DESC NAME
--> 0 255 some 0 11 2 fixed
FONTNAME_REGISTRY
FOUNDRY Misc
FAMILY_NAME Fixed
WEIGHT_NAME Medium
SLANT R
SETWIDTH_NAME SemiCondensed
ADD_STYLE_NAME
PIXEL_SIZE 13
POINT_SIZE 120
RESOLUTION_X 75
RESOLUTION_Y 75
SPACING C
AVERAGE_WIDTH 60
CHARSET_REGISTRY ISO8859
CHARSET_ENCODING 1
COPYRIGHT Public domain font. Share and enjoy.
CAP_HEIGHT 9
X_HEIGHT 6
FONT -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1
WEIGHT 10
RESOLUTION 103
QUAD_WIDTH 6

This is the normal output when 'fixed' is available. Here, we can see that
当“fixed”是可用的，这是通常输出的情况，我们可以看到
'fixed' is actually an alias for the font
“fixed”实际上是字体的别名。
'-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1'. If

there is no font 'fixed', we first need to gain knowledge of the search
如果不是字体“fixed”，我们首先需要获得更多的信息在字体的所在路径。
path for fonts. We can use command chkfontpath to look at those paths:
我们可以运用命令chkfontpath去看那些路径：

[root@localhost alex]# /usr/sbin/chkfontpath
Current directories in font path:
1: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled
2: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled
3: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled
4: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
5: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1
6: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo
7: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID
8: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi
9: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi
10: /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1
11: /usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType
12: /usr/share/fonts/ja/TrueType
13: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled
14: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/100dpi
15: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-7/misc:unscaled
16: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-7/75dpi:unscaled
17: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-7/100dpi:unscaled
18: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-7/misc
19: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-7/Type1
20: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-7/75dpi
21: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-7/100dpi
22: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-9/misc:unscaled
23: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-9/100dpi:unscaled
24: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-9/misc
25: /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-9/100dpi
26: /usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/100dpi:unscaled
27: /usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/100dpi
28: /usr/share/fonts/zh_CN/TrueType
29: /usr/share/fonts/zh_TW/TrueType
30: /usr/share/AbiSuite/fonts

These are the font paths on my box. It shows that xfs looks into these
这些字体路径在我的电脑上。它显示当它被修复的时候xfs观察这些路径寻找一个特殊的字体。
paths seeking a specific font when it is required. There are two types of
有两种类型的重要文件：
important files: fonts.dir in each of these paths, and fonts.alias in some
fonts.dir在每一个路径中，和fonts.alias在一些路径中。
of the paths. For example, let's go to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi,
例如，让我们进入/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi，
and open the files. The files look like this:
和打开文件。文件象这样：

[fonts.dir]


775
UTI___14.pcf.gz -adobe-utopia-regular-i-normal--19-140-100-100-p-104-iso10646-1
UTBI__14.pcf.gz -adobe-utopia-bold-i-normal--19-140-100-100-p-109-iso10646-1
UTI___12.pcf.gz -adobe-utopia-regular-i-normal--17-120-100-100-p-89-iso10646-1
UTI___24.pcf.gz -adobe-utopia-regular-i-normal--33-240-100-100-p-179-iso10646-1
courO08.pcf.gz -adobe-courier-medium-o-normal--11-80-100-100-m-60-iso10646-1
UTBI__12.pcf.gz -adobe-utopia-bold-i-normal--17-120-100-100-p-93-iso10646-1
...

The first line specifies the number of fonts under current directory.
这第一行详细说明字体的数量在当前目录。
Following lines map file names to font names.
以下几行是字体文件的名字。

[fonts.alias]

lucidasans-bolditalic-8 -b&h-lucida-bold-i-normal-sans-11-80-100-100-p-69-iso8859-1
lucidasans-bolditalic-10 -b&h-lucida-bold-i-normal-sans-14-100-100-100-p-90-iso8859-1
lucidasans-bolditalic-12 -b&h-lucida-bold-i-normal-sans-17-120-100-100-p-108-iso8859-1
lucidasans-bolditalic-14 -b&h-lucida-bold-i-normal-sans-20-140-100-100-p-127-iso8859-1
lucidasans-bolditalic-18 -b&h-lucida-bold-i-normal-sans-25-180-100-100-p-159-iso8859-1
lucidasans-bolditalic-24 -b&h-lucida-bold-i-normal-sans-34-240-100-100-p-215-iso8859-1
...

This file maps font alias to font names. So it is clear that once font
这个文件显示字体文件的别名与原名。因此清楚知道从前字体的“fixed”是需要的，
'fixed' is needed, the font server search fonts.alias in each font path
字体服务在比赛中寻找字体别名在每一字体路径中。
for a match. If the match exists, the corresponding font file is specified
如果比赛是存在，那相应的字体文件是指定在fonts.dir。
in fonts.dir. If no match exists, which is a rare situation, the X server
如果比赛不存在，那是非常罕见的情形，字体服务不可以运行我们需要重建字体列表。
cannot start and we need to rebuild the font lists. The rebuilding process
这重建的过程
will generate new fonts.dir and fonts.alias files.
将会产生新的fonts.dir和fonts.alias文件。

3. Rebuild font list.
重建字体列表。

Font list can be rebuilt using the script file xfs under /etc/init.d.
运用格本文件xfs在/etc/init.d下，字体列表可以被重建
Following is an excerpt of the script:
以下是格本文件的摘录：

...
buildfontlist() {
pushd . &> /dev/null
for d in $(/usr/sbin/chkfontpath --list | cut -f 2 -d ':') ;do
if [ -d "$d" ]; then
cd $d
# Check if we need to rerun mkfontdir
NEEDED=no
if ! [ -e fonts.dir ]; then
NEEDED=yes
elif [ "$(find . -type f -cnewer fonts.dir 2>/dev/null)" != "" ];then
NEEDED=yes
fi
if [ "$NEEDED" = "yes" ]; then
...
}
...
start() {
if [ -L /usr/X11R6/bin/X ]; then
echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
[ -x /usr/sbin/chkfontpath ] && buildfontlist
rm -fr /tmp/.font-unix
daemon xfs -droppriv -daemon
ret=$?
[ $ret -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/xfs
echo
return $ret
fi
}
...

For readers not familiar with shell programming, this excerpt means that
因为读者不熟悉运行命令程序，这格本文件的意思是每次xfs格本在运行，
each time xfs script is run, it will check whether there is a fonts.dir
它将会检查是否有fonts.dir在列表中的每一个字本路径中。
file in each listed font path. If fonts.dir is missing in a path, font
当fonts.dir在路径中消失，字体列表需要重建。
list needs to be rebuilt. If a fonts.dir does exist for each path, it will
如果fonts.dir不存在于每一路径中，它将会
check if the status of any file in the font directory is changed after the
检查是否所有文件在字体目录是被改变在fonts.dir最后一次改变。
last change of fonts.dir. If this is true, the font list also needs to be
如果这是真实的，字体列表也需要被重建。
rebuilt.

For newbies not interested in learning shell programming, we play a small
作为网络新手是对学习命令不感兴趣的，我们玩一个小窍门在子程序buildfontlist()。
trick in the subroutine buildfontlist(). We can set "NEEDED=yes" in the
我们可以设置"NEEDED=yes" 在第一情况下强制重建字体列表。
first instance to force the rebuilding of font list.

4. Fonts really missing?
字体确实不见了？

If all steps above fail. My last suggestion is to check if the font file
如果以上所有的步骤都失败了。我的最后一个意见书是检查是否字体文件
is really removed by some processes. Then you need to reinstall the font.
真正地被一些程序删去。然后你们需要重新设置字体.'