If media-fonts/corefonts isn't present on a system, myth-setup (which is a required part of setting up MythTV) will only render empty boxes when trying to display text. I presume corefonts automatically gets pulled in on systems where X11 will be used, but on headless machines it's left out. Maybe the emerge --info holds some secrets. Reproducible: Always Portage 2.1.4.4 (default/linux/x86/2008.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.6.1-r0, 2.6.25-gentoo-r7 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.25-gentoo-r7 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor Timestamp of tree: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:17:02 +0000 app-shells/bash: 3.2_p17-r1 dev-lang/python: 2.4.4-r13 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.61-r1 sys-devel/automake: 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r1 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.24 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.23-r3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="candy distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://10.0.0.1/gentoo-portage" USE="bzip2 cli cracklib crypt dri fortran gpm iconv isdnlog midi mmx mudflap mysql ncurses nethack nls nptl nptlonly openmp pam pcre perl pppd python readline reflection session spl ssl sysfs unicode x86 xorg zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="none" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Which version of myth are you using? Personally, I've never had it installed, and never had font issues. It could be missing some generic font, and not necessarily corefonts. liberation-fonts might work as well.
MythTV actually includes it's own free font which it will use as a fallback. I actually used that font for ages since I never had any font packages installed on my system until I gave my myth look a make over and used some nicer looking fonts. I still don't have corefonts installed on that machine, though.
can't dupe this one, and if its still an issue, which version of myth are you using?
I just had this. I started with a fresh system, headless, as it's a duplicate of a server for testing. This was mainly used for MythTV 0.22 testing. When I got everything setup, then emerged MythTV (0.22), everything went fine. I then ran setup, and was unable to see nothing but squares. I did a quick search, and it came up about corefonts. I installed them, and I was able to see everything. It seems with not installing X, something else doesn't get installed to use the fallback font. When I get home this evening I can post --info if people would like to see it.
