After some more reading, I learned that emacs23 handles X fonts in a very different way than emacs22. Perhaps using set-fontset-font is unavoidable.
** Changed in: emacs23 (Ubuntu) Status: New => Invalid -- emacs23 does not create a fontset that emacs22 used to https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/468980 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs