is it possible to provide "X11 font server" service ?

[legacy]

hi
i've got an old powerbook G3 which i'd like to use to provide X11 font server to other machines, is it possible to do that ?
for example i have a remote machine running Wolfram Mathematica which requires a specific set of fonts
and the problem is that if you use Mathematica from a remote session (ssh remote machine, export DISPLAY=local_machine:0.0)
you need to install such a fund set locally, and this is exactly what i'd like to avoid !

i'd prefer to have an other remote machine (the powerbook G3/gentoo, for example) which provide such a fonts in case of need

is it possible ?

[srs5694]

Yes, but maybe no.

There is a tool known as the X font server (xfs), which does precisely what you want. The trouble is that server-side fonts generally, and xfs specifically, are deprecated. I just checked, and my Gentoo installation doesn't seem to have xfs installed, and I don't see any obvious packages for installing it. (Note that there's also a filesystem called XFS. There are too many collisions on these TLAs!)

If the programs that need these fonts use server-side X fonts, you might be able to track down the xfs source code, build a server, and use it as originally intended. Most modern programs, however, have moved on to client-side fonts (provided by Xft or other tools), and so won't work with xfs. From your description, it sounds like Mathematica might still be using server-side fonts, so using xfs might do the job for you; but this might change if Wolfram has an update in the works. It might be worth asking them about this detail.

[nephros]

The easiest route would probably be a NFS or SMB mount to the client and load the fonts from there.
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