Getting Scribus working on Ubuntu Linux

My ubuntu breezy install is a bit strange. I initally installed the server version of breezy from the original 5.10 install disks. I then did an apt-get install gnome-session and installed freeNX to connect to my server. More recently I have installed Edubuntu. I am the author of a little educational game - anagramarama - and would like this to be available in edubuntu, so I did an apt-get install edubuntu-session. This installed lots of goodies that my nieces and nephews have enjoyed (gcompris, tuxpaint and more).

When I started Scribus DTP, I received the following error message during the splash screen startup. 

	-------------------------------------------------------
	Fatal Error

	There are no suitable Fonts on your System
	Exiting now
	-------------------------------------------------------

This is probably due to my contrived installation method, but I need a fix now.

The first thing I tried is to run strace to see if I could work out why the fonts were not available 

	-------------------------------------------------------
	$ strace -f -eopen scribus

	...
	open("/usr/lib/X11/locale/locale.alias", O_RDONLY)
		 = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
	open("/usr/lib/X11/locale/locale.alias", O_RDONLY)
		 = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
	open("/usr/lib/X11/locale/locale.dir", O_RDONLY) 
		= -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
	open("/usr/lib/X11/locale/common/xomGeneric.so.2", 
		O_RDONLY) = 7
	open("/usr/lib/X11/locale/locale.alias", O_RDONLY) 
		= -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
	open("/usr/lib/X11/locale/locale.alias", O_RDONLY) 
		= -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
	open("/usr/lib/X11/locale/locale.dir", O_RDONLY) 
		= -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

	-------------------------------------------------------

Right, interesting. Scribus is looking for files named locale.alias and locale.dir within /usr/lib/X11/locale. Were these file on my system at all?

	-------------------------------------------------------
	$ locate locale.alias locale.dir
	/etc/locale.alias
	/usr/share/man/man5/locale.alias.5.gz
	/usr/share/locale/locale.alias
	/usr/share/gettext/intl/locale.alias
	/usr/share/X11/locale/locale.alias
	/usr/share/X11/locale/locale.dir
	-------------------------------------------------------

Okay they are available, but not in the path Scribus is looking in.

Looking on the web, I found this problem documented in the Scribus FAQ

A work-around is to create a plain text file called ~/.scribus/scribusfonts.rc and list the fonts within that file. I got my list of fonts from /etc/X11/xorg.conf and pasted them in here (just the paths) 

	-------------------------------------------------------
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/CID
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi
	/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi
	/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType
	/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID
	-------------------------------------------------------

OK, so I now have a working scribus, but I must remember that when I install new fonts that I have to add the path to the font in the scribusfonts.rc file.



This article © 2006 Colm Gallagher, Coralquest Limited.

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