X.org: Fatal server error

[Joseph Olatt]

On Thu, Feb 07, 2008 at 01:44:03PM +0100, Harald Weis wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> *** Fatal server error:
> *** could not open default font 'fixed'
> 
> This is the message (without the stars) I get on a laptop after
> a fresh install of FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE i386 (previously 6.0).
> 
> Searching the archives, I found two reasons which do not apply for me:
> 
> 1. xorg-fonts-miscbitmaps-7.2 is properly installed
> 2. the same is true for font-alias-1.0.1
> 
> A good reason in my case seems to be: all fonts.dir files are empty.
> 
> Running ``mkfontdir [-e encodings/] misc/''  creates always an empty
> fonts.dir file, but with the '-e' option a correct encodings.dir file.
> 
> Conclusion: mkfontdir appears to be broken, or rather mkfontscale as
> the former is just a single-line shell script.
> 
> xorg-7.2, xorg-fonts-7.2 and all the rest are properly installed.
> The instructions of the 20070519-section in UPDATING have successfully
> been executed.
> 
> Fortunately, lynx and elinks work alright.
> 
> Needless to say that I've  portupgrade'd both mkfontdir and mkfontscale
> with the '-f' option, and that my ports tree is portsnap'ed up-to-date.
> 
> What else could I do to find the bug ? 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Harald

I would check and see if you have the following packages installed:
1. font-misc-misc
2. font-cursor-misc

They are in: /usr/ports/x11-fonts

regards,
joseph