X cannot find default font

[Daniel Stone]

On Wed, 2005-09-07 at 14:41 -0400, refdoc wrote:
> No. Most other packages respect changed config files and offer you a
> choice "install old/new or compare". X simply zooms through and leaves
> you with a mess. I would call this a bug as update will break the
> system.

Sigh.

The install/compare option is offered by dpkg, when a package which is
registered as a 'conffile' has changed both on disk and in the package.
xorg.conf is not (repeat: not) registered as a conffile, because ...
well, you'd need to all be running one driver, one resolution, etc, etc.
It's generated by maintainer scripts on your machine in post-install --
i.e., after dpkg has unpacked the conffiles and diffed them -- so has
nothing to do with dpkg's conffile mechanism.

As for repeated assertions that updates will eat your soul or something,
there are now symlinks in /usr/lib/X11/fonts going back
to /usr/share/X11/fonts (or maybe it was just a
blanket /usr/lib/X11/fonts -> /usr/share/X11/fonts, I don't recall).
Either way, there's stuff in there to *handle* the transition, so if it
fails badly, either it's a bug that I missed, or you're using an old CD.

In any case, assertions that X just 'zooms through and leaves you with a
mess' are unfair and unhelpful, especially given that it seems to just
work for the large majority, who are clearly doing something wrong,
given that they mysteriously did not end up with a broken system.