Xorg and Fonts

[Glynn Clements]

Keith Packard wrote:

> Early estimates showed that total network traffic was a wash for Latin-1
> fonts; server-side fonts must transmit all glyph metrics to the client
> before any text drawing is done while client-side fonts must transmit
> all used glyph images before drawing is done. Because client-side fonts
> need only transmit the images actually used, this becomes even more
> relevant when you start talking about larger fonts with significant
> Unicode coverage.

How does this scale in the case where there are many clients all using
the same font? Does the X server end up storing many copies of the
same glyphs, or is there some mechanism by which common glyphs can be
identified and shared?

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>