[SOLVED] Re: emacs-23.1.90 in terminal does not respond to keyboard input, but works fine as a standalone X11 app.

[Richard Lemieux]

On 12/03/2012 08:26 PM, Richard Lemieux wrote:
> Re: Emacs-23.1.90.1 on Slackware14.
>
> Hi,
>
> When I open Emacs-23.1.90.1 in a base Linux console or in a X11 xterm 
> terminal, Emacs doen't respond to whatever I type.  After Emacs is killed, all 
> the characters I typed appear in the console/terminal.
>
> I have seen one prior reference to this problem on the net but it did not 
> provide any clue as to how to solve this issue.  It just mentioned a link with 
> Gtk.
>
> This occurs following a system upgrade to Slackware14 64bit.  I guess this 
> problem comes from the new Gtk libraries that come with the update.  The 
> version of Emacs coming with the new Slackware14 works in a terminal but does 
> not work with SCIM and I can't use Emacs to type Chinese characters this way 
> (I understand it works with ibus with some setup).  SCIM works fine in xterm 
> and Thunderbird/Firefox.
>
> Emacs-23.1.90.1 has worked well for me for a long time and it used to work 
> both in terminals and with SCIM on X11, so I compiled Emacs-23.1.90.1 for 
> x86_64 and it works fine with SCIM under the new Slackware.  Unfortunately, 
> but it does not work at all in a terminal.
>
> So I am looking for a workaround that would allow Emacs-23.1.90.1 to work on a 
> terminal under the new system.  Does someone has some clue as to why 
> Emacs-23.1.90.1 can't get keyboard input in this new setting?
>
> Thanks
The problem was that Emacs (or some X11 library routine) needed some font that 
it could not find.  At that point Emacs had access to the fonts provided by the 
basic X11 install  plus the fonts coming with Linux.  After I moved all the 
fonts from my older Linux partition to the newer one, the problem was gone.  
Unfortunately I can't tell which font was missing since I have accumulated too 
many fonts over the years.

So even when running Emacs in a 'linux' virtual console, one needs to have some 
particular font installed (setting of LANG had no effect if I recall correctly).

Although I know the problem was related to some font, I still can't tell why 
this specific choice of font is critical to the operation of Emacs on a dumb 
'linux' console.