Ever since upgrading to rxvt-unicode-7.0, I get the following message when trying to start urxvt{,c}: urxvt: unable to load base fontset, please specify a valid one using -fn, aborting. This is my .Xdefaults file: URxvt.loginShell: true URxvt.tintColor: slate gray URxvt.foreground: #ffffff URxvt.background: #000000 URxvt.scrollBar: false URxvt.saveLines: 3000 URxvt.inheritPixmap: true URxvt.font: "-*-terminus-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*" I get the same message without the font: line there, and urxvt still fails to start. Curiously, if I specify -fn 'xft:terminus', or -fn '-*-terminus-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*' on the commandline urxvt{,c} starts up with no problems, and uses all the other settings from my .Xdefaults file. jc@Asterix ~ $ emerge --info Portage 2.1_pre3-r1 (default-linux/amd64/2005.1, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.6-r2, 2.6.15-gentoo x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.15-gentoo x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+ Gentoo Base System version 1.6.14 dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.17 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1-r1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe -fno-ident" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe -fno-ident" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.blueyonder.co.uk http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/ http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/gentoo/ http://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo/" LANG="en_GB.UTF-8" LC_ALL="en_GB.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" LINGUAS="en_GB" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="amd64 X alsa audiofile berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cairo cdparanoia cdr chroot crypt ctype curl dri dvd dvdr dvdread emul-linux-x86 encode exif expat fam ffmpeg firefox flac ftp gd gdbm gif glut gnome gpm gtk gtk2 iconv imlib jpeg jpeg2k kqemu lesstif libwww mad maildir mbox mng mp3 mpeg msn ncurses nls nptl offensive ogg oggvorbis opengl pam pam_chroot pcre pdflib php png python readline sdl spell ssl svg tcpd tetex threads truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb userlocales vorbis xml2 xpm xv xvid zlib elibc_glibc kernel_linux linguas_en_GB userland_GNU" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET jc@Asterix ~ $ emerge -p xorg-x11 rxvt-unicode These are the packages that I would merge, in order: Calculating dependencies ...done! [ebuild R ] x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 [ebuild R ] x11-terms/rxvt-unicode-7.1
Hmm. 7.0 and later has new xdefaults handling code. I have the following in my .Xdefaults and it works as expected: urxvt.font: -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--16-*-72-72-c-80-* urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--16-*-72-72-c-80-* If I add double quotes I get the error you describe. Maybe (hopefully) that's the issue?
(In reply to comment #1) > Hmm. 7.0 and later has new xdefaults handling code. I have the following in my > .Xdefaults and it works as expected: > > urxvt.font: -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--16-*-72-72-c-80-* > urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--16-*-72-72-c-80-* > > If I add double quotes I get the error you describe. Maybe (hopefully) that's > the issue? Yup, that fixed it. I didn't notice before because urxvtd was still using the settings from what was in the .Xdefaults file when it started, and apparently urxvt was using them as well, not reloading it when it started as I would have expected.