It does the same for me on Feisty up to date. I believe it needs to be compiled with xft backend support.
** Changed in: emacs21 (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided => Medium Status: Unconfirmed => Confirmed -- emacs21(X11) displays boxes for fonts then crashes https://launchpad.net/bugs/81027 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs