Re: GTK build crashes under X

[Stephen Berman]

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 16:50:47 +0100 Jan Djärv <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hmm, modifying the Makefile wont do, as pango dynamically links in
> fontconfig at runtime.
>
> If you built fontconfig under /usr/local/lib and the libfontconfig.so
> file is in /usr/local/lib, you should be able to do
>
> % LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
> % export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
> % emacs
>
> or
> % gdb emacs
>
> to get Emacs to use the fontconfig you have compiled.

Thanks, this worked, and GTK Emacs started without a problem and
seemed to function normally.  The only unusual thing was that, after
emacs started, the shell printed "Invalid directory name
/usr/local/share/fonts"; do you know what the significance of this is
(the directory does exist)?

I then used strings and ediff to compare the libfontconfig.so I built
with SUSE's libfontconfig.so in /usr/lib.  One of the differences was
that SUSE's libfontconfig.so uses the directory /var/cache/fontconfig,
whereas my build uses /usr/local/var/cache/fontconfig.  As an
experiment I moved fontconfig out of /var/cache/ and then invoked
GTK-Emacs (without setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to /usr/local/lib), and it
started.  However, it took exceptionally long to start, and I noticed
afterwards that ~/.fonts.cache-2 had been rebuilt and was ~1.6 MB (its
normal size is 8 KB).  Then I could not start a new instance of
GTK-Emacs unless I deleted ~/.fonts.cache-2, and then it was rebuilt
again.  Also, when I moved the fontconfig directory back into
/var/cache, I again could not start GTK-Emacs.  So it appeared that
SUSE's fontconfig was somehow broken, and that the breakage was
somehow caused by wxGTK (since before installing that I had no problem
starting GTK-Emacs with the same fontconfig).

This was the state of things last night.  This morning I wanted to
pursue it but, to my surprise, I now cannot get GTK-Emacs to segfault.
I first started it with no ~/.fonts.cache-2 and no
/var/cache/fontconfig (and without setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to
/usr/local/lib) and, as last night, it started slow and a ~1.6 MB
large ~/.fonts.cache-2 was rebuilt.  But then I could start further
instances without deleting ~/.fonts.cache-2, unlike last night.
Moreover, when I moved fontconfig back into /var/cache/, I still could
start GTK-Emacs (and a big ~/.fonts.cache-2 was again rebuilt).
That's the current situation.  So, I'm pleased that I have GTK-Emacs
back again, but I would still like to know why I lost it in the first
place, so if anyone has an suggestions, I'd be grateful.

Steve Berman