4

I have two Mac OS X clients, both running XQuartz 2.1.6 (xorg-server 1.4.2-apple33). When I SSH into a remote linux system enabling X11 forwarding and launch gnome-terminal, on one Mac the terminal looks correct while on the other, the fonts are all screwy!

[jnet@Stan ~]$ ssh -X [email protected] gnome-terminal produces: Lookin good!

powerbook:~ hp$ ssh -X [email protected] gnome-terminal produces: OH MY GOD, MY EYES!!!!!

The problem goes away on the powerbook if I zoom in twice: Looks OK only because the image is scaled down to fit

Edit: This affects a number of apps, not just gnome-terminal. It also affects Thunderbird, for example.

Improve this question
3
  • I would love to tag as [x11] [fonts], can anyone help a new user out? Commented Oct 4, 2010 at 16:05
  • Seven years later, this seems like a Wisdom of the Ancients issue. Did you happen to figure it out? Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 3:49
  • Sadly @mpontillo I gave up, and now I am using XQuartz. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 3:51

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Looks like a font problem - run Font Book.app, click All Fonts, then select all the fonts in the middle pane (cmd-a) and choose File -> Validate Font from the menu. This will produce a report of any fonts with issues.

If you find a broken font file, look where it is residing:

  • if it's a system font (any path not in /Users), replace it from install media or the working Mac (easier)
  • if it's a user font (any path in /Users), delete it - the system fonts should be sufficient, but user fonts take precedence, so if the user installed some borked font it can cause this.
Improve this answer
1

I was able to improve things by doing the following:

On my Ubuntu system, I ran:

xrdb -query -all

This resulted in the following output:

*customization: -color Xcursor.size: 24 Xcursor.theme: DMZ-White Xft.antialias: 1 Xft.dpi: 96 Xft.hinting: 1 Xft.hintstyle: hintslight Xft.rgba: rgb

I then took that output and created a ~/.Xresources file on the Mac, using as its contents the above output of xrdb -query -all. Then, on the Mac, I ran:

xrdb ~/.Xresources

... which I understood should cause the settings to take effect in the current X server. Subsequently, the font rendering seemed better, though it still isn't perfect.

Thanks to this answer for providing some hints about the a possible fix.

Improve this answer
1
  • Nice, glad you found at least a partial fix. I don't have that hardware anymore so I can't test it anymore, but +1 for good relevant info! Commented Nov 30, 2017 at 3:38

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.