Comment 82 for bug 197163

I am using Debian Lenny (xorg-server 1.4.2, xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.3.2, libqt4-core and libqt4-gui in version 4.4.0, Mathematica 6.01) and am suffering from the same (or a very similar) font rendering bug in Mathematica.

On my system all ordinary letters are invisible (sometimes very small parts are shown) in input, output and text cells. Subsections sections and so on display as usual. In addition most special letters, like lower greek or braces, are displayed just fine also in input, output and text cells. The problem seams to be that the text color is white (same as the background color), as the "invisible" letters can be made visible by selecting them with the cursor (this makes them display white on black) or by setting the background color using Format->Background Color. However it is not possible to change the text color via Format->Text Color. It always remains white.

During startup I get the error messages that are mentioned in the very first post. Launching Mathematica with the -defaultvisual parameter or setting the variable XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS resolves the problem, but then the fonts from Mathematica 5.2 are used, which looks really ugly. Renaming the QT libs changes the overall look of Mathematica but did nothing about the font rendering bug.

BUT: I figured out a workaround while I was playing with xrandr!

The problem completely goes away after setting the screen resolution temporarily to some lower value, retuning to the original resolution and restarting mathematica. For me

xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1280x1024
xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1400x1050

does the job. After this procedure I am also able to change the text color using Format->Text. However Mathematica still outputs the same error messages as before.

Font rendering remains normal even if I suspend the computer or go into hibernation. Restarting the xserver makes the bug reappear.

It would be nice if someone could try if this is really the same bug.

Hope that helps!