Bug 126447 - mkfontdir can't handle "compress"ed font files
Summary: mkfontdir can't handle "compress"ed font files
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: XFree86
Version: 2
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Mike A. Harris
QA Contact: David Lawrence
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2004-06-21 19:17 UTC by Peter Fales
Modified: 2007-11-30 22:10 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2004-07-07 02:04:20 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


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Description Peter Fales 2004-06-21 19:17:43 UTC
Description of problem:

We have an X11 font directory where the .pcf files are compressed
using "compress" (with a .Z extension).   In RedHat 9, the mkfontdir
program is able to handle this, but the Fedora 2 version is not.  I'm
pretty sure the problem is in mkfontdir (rather than some other system
configuration problem) because it works if I copy the mkfontdir binary
over from a RedHat 9 system.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible: Easy


Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Make a temp dir and cd to it:
        mkdir /tmp/t1
        cd /tmp/t1
2. Populate with a compressed file
        cp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/timR24.pcf.gz .
        gunzip timR24.pcf
        compress timR24.pcf
3. Run mkfontdir
        mkfontdir
  
Actual results:

File begins with "0" (no font files found)


Expected results:

File should look like:

1
timR24.pcf.Z adobe-times-medium-r-normal--24-240-75-75-p-124-iso10646-1


Additional info:

Must have the "ncompress" rpm installed.

Comment 1 Mike A. Harris 2004-06-23 12:49:53 UTC
X.Org X11R6.7.0 has removed the UNIX compress source code from the
X11 distribution due to licensing conflicts which were discovered
after a license audit.

As such, X.Org X11 no longer contains support for decompressing UNIX
'compress' compressed fonts.  The recommended workaround is to
decompress all fonts using gunzip (which can decompress UNIX
compress archives), and to recompress them with gzip -9.



Comment 2 Mike A. Harris 2004-07-07 02:04:20 UTC
I've double-confirmed this with a few other developers.  As mentioned
above, there are potential legal issues with "compress" which were
discovered during the X development cycle.  The code was removed,
and all support for .Z fonts was removed from libXfont.

I've confirmed that upstream currently has no plans on adding back
.Z compressed font support, so fonts compressed in this manner will
not be supported under current or future Red Hat X releases.

As mentioned above however, you can decompress .Z compressed font
files using uncompress, ncompress, or gunzip, and recompress them
with "gzip -9".  gzipped fonts will continue to be supported by
the X server, and also save disk space.

Closing as "WONTFIX"



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