Does Stata(GUI) for Linux depend on the X server being XFree86, as
opposed to Xorg? That's now my best guess but my Linux skills are
limited, and I have not been able to solve the problem I reported:
> > The problem is that all the fonts in Stata look ugly when I use
> > SimplyMepis 3.4.3. The fonts look great when I use another
> > application, e.g., OpenOffice Writer or Firefox.
> > Also, Stata often crashes with a GTK error message when I try to
> > change the preferences in an attempt to fix the problem. Sometimes
> > this is the error message when Stata crashes:
Orvalho Joaquim Augusto (a.k.a "Caveman") <[email protected]> replied:
> I used once Mandriva 2005 and had something like that. It disappeared
> when I installed gtk-devel packages.
>
> By the way which gnome do you use? If you dont have gnome... Consider an
> gnome installation.
SimplyMepis uses KDE, not Gnome, but that should not matter. I
installed all gdk and gtk packages that seemed reasonable (e.g.,
libgtk2.0-dev) and restarted the computer but the problem remained.
Reinstalling Stata after updated packages also did not help.
Chinh Nguyen [email protected] replied:
> My guess is that your Unix distribution did not install the X11 bitmap fonts
> by default. Stata requires X11 font version of Times and Helvetica to
> function properly.
>
> For example, on my Fedora Core 1 Linux box, my X11 bitmap fonts are stored
> in:
>
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/
>
> In /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi, there are tim* and helv* font files.
I went to KDE Control Center -> System Administration -> Font
Installer and could see tim* and helv* font files in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi. I'm not sure if that's enough of a
check.
I asked at the Mepis forum http://www.mepis.org/node/9149 but did not
get a reply, hopefully because few posters there use Stata. The
largest changes from version 3.3.1 to 3.4.3 of SimplyMepis are: KDE
3.4 replaced KDE 3.3, XOrg replaced Xfree86, and the repository
"testing" (etch) replaced "unstable" (sid). I then upgraded both
distributions to KDE 3.5.1. The Stata(GUI) problem remained: still
ugly fonts in SimplyMepis 3.4.3 and nice fonts in SimplyMepis 3.3.
The only Debian book I have is Martin Krafft's (2005) Debian System:
Concepts on Techniques. On page 97 he mentions that the Xfree86 server
includes a font server. The Stata manual [GSU] B.2 mentions that
Stata(GUI) requires the X Windows libraries. But does Stata(GUI)
require Xfree86 as opposed to XOrg? That would explain the Stata(GUI)
font problem in SimplyMepis 3.4.3. That would also be a bigger problem
than originally reported, because Linux is moving away from using
XFree86 to using XOrg.
Anders Alexandersson
[email protected]
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