[gobolinux-users] KDM problem solved; a couple of other issues, maybe...

[Travis Evans]

On Monday 25 December 2006 10:54, Andy Feldman wrote:
> Very strange: I have that line in my kdmrc, and no Xorg 6.8.2, but I
> never experienced the same problem as you. Maybe someone else can
> shed light on why, but I'm glad you got it fixed.

I think I started with a fresh copy of KDE 3.5.5 and made just that one 
change to make sure it wasn't something else I did that fixed it, and 
that indeed seemed to be the problem for me.  Then again, I had 
accidentally issued a command earlier to permanently copy part of the 
KDE 3.5.3 directory structure to KDE 3.5.5, but I had a backup copy of 
3.5.5 which I didn't mess up [at least I don't *think* I did... ;-)].

It kind of makes sense to me, because KDM would just sit there and not 
even make it to starting X... which I suppose would happen if it 
couldn't find the X executable.

> > I discovered now, though, that GIMP is really broken... there are
> > no fonts at all; ALL characters in the UI display as rectangles.
>
> Step 1: try Krita instead and see if it meets your needs :-). Since
> you run KDE, I'm assuming you'd prefer a KDE-based advanced image
> editor anyway, to match your look and feel. It's a bit slow, but gets
> the job done for me. Krita is part of the Koffice package.

That's okay; I fixed it now.  I found an available upgrade for Gimp, 
applied it, and it was fixed--maybe it was a dependency issue of some 
sort.  Why didn't I think of that earlier?  I had already fixed two or 
three other packages by upgrading some component [although it could be 
argued that that was also what broke things in the first place :-) ].

> Yup. In addition to setting the fonts like I mentioned in an earlier
> email, you may have to go into Edit > Preferences > Content >
> Fonts&Colors-Section, click "Advanced...", and uncheck the box that
> allows web pages to set their own fonts.

I usually don't mind if web pages occasionally opt for non-anti-aliased 
fonts--fortunately the majority of web pages I come across don't.  I've 
always had this issue on SUSE, too.  In cases where the jagged fonts 
really bother me, I usually have the Prefbar extension installed so I 
can toggle the "allow web pages to use other fonts" option quickly 
without having to fumble around with Edit > Preferences.

I think all that's left for right now (unless something else breaks) is 
do some Googling on how to configure GTK+'s appearance, try configuring 
a few miscellaneous aspects of the system, and then try installing more 
software packages (I expect that last part to take quite a while since 
I'll probably have to compile most of them from sources (and hope I 
don't run into any build errors, which tend to happen a bit more often 
than I'd like thanks to Murphey's Law--although thankfully the majority 
of them turn out having quick and easy solutions)).

-- 
Travis Evans