Issue with emacs font on remote server machine

Question

When I am trying to open emacs on the server machine after logging in using the command

ssh -X username@server.com

I get gibberish text on emacs with everything converted to square boxes. I also get warnings on the terminal saying

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

I assume some fonts are missing and need to be installed manually or some settings need to be altered at the remote machine. I am using Ubuntu terminal for connection to remote server and emacs invocation.

Answer 1

Explanation and solution (if you don't have access to the remote fonts installation) here:

https://superuser.com/questions/247435/cant-export-emacs-display-on-ssh

But I'd really go with @Tikhon_Jelvis's way (see above comment #1 to your question) which is definitely more "emacsy" and possibly lighter as, I guess, no X connection is forwarded...

Answer 2

You can try to change the font path in xorg.conf :

Version with problems

Section "Files"
# paths to defoma fonts
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
EndSection

Version without any problems

Section "Files"
# paths to defoma fonts
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/CID"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
EndSection

Tell me if it works for you.