Cannot open font file True

[jakebpg]

Installed the alpha release (from get Fedora page)on my old laptop in the hopes the display problems would be fixed from F16, they haven't!

But I get the error that the system can not open font file True, Now I'm thinking it means true fonts file. This is at boot.

Anyone else get this error on F17 Alpha? Also it is the RC5 kernel release.

Hardware is a Toshiba A75 S2112 with 2GB of memory, 3.7GB Intel processor and an ATI Radeon Mobility 9100IGP video card!

The graphics are terrible when desktop effects are enabled but the error with the fonts is what I'm wondering about, but if anyone can assist in getting the graphics working I'd appreciate that to.

Thanks in advance!

And should I fill out a bug report for this and for the graphics also?

[DBelton]

That error is because it can not find the file named "True" that is specified on the kernel line in the SYSFONT=TRUE parameter that is on the alpha releases.

I changed mine back to load the latarcyrheb-sun16 font like previous releases did.

What I did...

modified /etc/default/grub

replaced SYSFONT=True with SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 on GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX= line

Then run:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

There is already a bug filed on this issue, but you can add to it if you wish.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=799401

[tuxor]

What's the best way to fix this?

I can replace "True" with "latarcyrheb-sun16". Of course, that works great.

But I can also remove the whole "SYSFONT=True" parameter from the boot cmdline and remove the respective line from my /etc/sysconfig/i18n file. Works as well - same result!

But I'm not sure whether some day there will be a problem, because that variable is not set?! Is SYSFONT really entirely dispensable?

[DBelton]

According to the bug report, it's an anaconda bug which can't be fixed on an installed system, so th efix is to manually change it yourself.

Just manually change True every place it is used as a font name in the
following 3 files:

/boot/grub2/grub.cfg
/etc/sysconfig/i18n
/etc/default/grub

Typically it was latarcyrheb-sun16 on most systems.

You could use latarcyrheb-sun32 if you want a bigger font for boot messages
and in console screens.

sysfont probably has a default font it uses if not specified, so you probably could do without the sysfont parameter without any problems.

Edit:
Link to bug report:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=799401

[smr54]

I've removed (when I thought this was causing a hang--turned out to be something else), the entire sysfont part without issue.

No guarantees that it won't come back and bite later on, but so far, it's been fine.

I've found, through the years, that most of the time, all grub needs--haven't really tested this with grub2 though--is where the vmlinuz and initrd files are. All the rest seems to be enhancement and can often be removed without causing any problems.

[tuxor]

Don't worry, it won't "come back" unless you reinstall F17. You can inspect the respective Anaconda source code here: http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=a...e1eb50d7e7fd0e There's no doubt that SYSFONT=True is caused by Anaconda and nothing else. Unfortunately that's also the reason why it can't be fixed once F17 has been installed.