[geeks] KDE "konsole" cluebat?

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 @ 13:42 -0700, Nadine said:

> Any KDE experts out there that can hit me with a cluebat on this issue?

The short answer to your question is to use xterm.

Unless you happen to want the menus and tabs, there really isn't much
point to Konsole (and similar programs).

Fonts work a lot better too since Jim Gettys updated xterm to use the
new font engine.

However, if you really want Konsole...

> I'm trying to get the terminal font, "terminus" to show up in the font
> selection list.  I've done the requisite googling (and got Linux
> refs):

terminus is not a valid font for Konsole.

I don't know specifically why, but some fonts, even if they work for
some programs, won't work for all of them.

I don't know if some code is more strict, or programs like Konsole are
setting filters in their font browser that rejects it for some reason.

There are several fonts that I was never able to make show up in
Konsole, and also some other KDE programs like Kate, etc.

> I'm running under Solaris 10 x86 using the blastwave package kde-gcc.

Keep in mind that Sun's X server isn't as good as what most Linux
distros come with, though the last one I tested in Solaris Express might
have caught up. I meant to check that yesterday but I ran out of time.

NOTE: That's not likely your problem, but you might want to check a few
things anyway:

Make sure Sun didn't use the broken FreeType library that has the
inferior non-Apple rendering engine.  If it does, your fonts will never
be as nice looking, especially on an LCD.

The issue is patents, but if you get the sources for FreeType you can
change a #define and it will use the Apple font code and look much
better.

You also want to make sure that Sun's X server has XRender support and
has the libraries for sub-pixel rendering if you are using an LCD
or even a linear RGB CRT.

Finally, make sure you install the better font libraries out there. Some
of what comes with X is not very good, and excellent replacements exist,
including a few from Microsoft. I don't know if Sun included any of them
or not, but since you have some ugly fonts, I thought it might be worth
checking.

Oh, and if you do have an LCD, disable anti-aliasing and use sub-pixel
hinting instead.  It is much better.

> Barring an answer to that, anyone know why going from my Sol 10 box
> using xterm to a Linux box results in completely weird terminal
> behavior? (e.g. improperly updated characters in the term and similar)

Do you mean running xterm on the Linux box and displaying with the
Solaris X server, or just using xterm on Solaris and connecting to the
Linux box with ssh or something like that?

The answer depends a lot on exactly how you are connecting.


-- 
shannon          | Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. -- Unknown