Please help to avoid mouse clicking as root!

grautu · 11-09-2005, 04:03 AM

Hi!
Useless to explain why strongly recommended that root tasks be carried out at command line, not by mouse clicking within the X environment. However here is a task which, despite of being very common (!), I wasn't able to carry out without mouse clicking under X. Since a professional command-line alternative surely exist, this thread is kindly asking for advice.
One often happens that internet sites display on the client's monitor not letters but little boxes arrays. Most often that happens because of lacking (on the client behalf) of suitable fonts for non latin languages. Please do believe that, even installing all KDEI Slackware packages, you do not solve all natural needs in this respect, though suitable fonts do exist available. Another example is that of professionally peculiar sites which need non-literal fonts (e.g. musical composition, mathematics, etc).
So, in such cases, the root which has got suitable X fonts must install them. Here are the beginning steps to follow.
-------------------
1) Create a font directory

Code:

# mkdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/font_completion

and put inside the new font files.
2) Edit

Code:

# pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and introduce a PATH, to the new font files, by inserting a suitable line such as

Code:

FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/font_completion"

3) Update the font setting

Code:

# fc-cache

4) and verify the availability of the new font files

Code:

# fc-list

-------------------
Now the new fonts, though fully installed, cannot be seen (therefore cannot be implemented concretely) by most of X applications; one needs a litle "introducing step". Here is the only practical guidance which I've found on the net:
5) Open X, choose Control Center -> System Administration -> Font Installer -> Administration Mode then introduce the root password, choose Add Fonts and finally specify, in turn, the paths to each font file to be acknowledged by X applications.
Could you please specify a command-line counterpart to the 5) step from above?
Thanks!

Alien Bob · 11-09-2005, 05:02 AM

I guess that if you do steps (1) to (4) before you start X, you do not have to perform step (5) because the new fonts will be known to X already, and thus KDE will be able to use them, too.

If you are running KDE when you add your fonts, you could consider stopping X and starting it again?
On the other hand, I do not see too much harm in using "administrator mode" from time to time in the KDE control panel. After all, most of the time, you're working as a normal user anyway. Performing your root tasks at the command line is not that safe by default, either.... ever had the problem where you wanted to type

Code:

rm -r /some/directory

and ended up with

Code:

rm -r / some/directory

after which your hard drive was making noises for a very long time?

Cheers, Eric

grautu · 11-09-2005, 06:14 AM

Hi Alien Bob!
(1) Your guess is definitely wrong in that I obstinately did follow steps 1)-4) at shell prompt, without running X. Then I first verified the effect (in fact the lack of any effect) of those steps among the X applications and at the very end I followed step 5).
(2) As for the concrete harm of administering mode under X, this was not the sense of my thread anyway. My choice for Slackware was not so much targetting to get an immediately running operation system (other distributions are recommended for that) as it aimed to understand the Linux' inside. Furthermore, though rather curious, I'm also currently running a Debian box without a bit of X installed on it. In fact it is the challenge to know Linux in a constructive way: install first a barebone box, then verify and learn dependencies, then install a bit more and so on. Clearly it is a choice as any other one. I think Slacware is a place to discuss such details, though some other people could not be interested anyway; they may freely neglect some threads.
Thanks!