Hi! Kenshi Muto <kmuto@debian.org> (2015-07-22): > This is a proposal to replace ttf-cjk-compact with fonts-droid for > next (Stretch) debian-installer. > > Introduction: > DroidSansFallback.ttf of fonts-droid package appears best choice for > graphical debian-installer to show CJK - Chinese, Japanese, Korean -, > because it is scalable font, quite small footprint (3939852 bytes), > and enough legible. > > ttf-cjk-compact was born in 2005, to display CJK characters on > graphical debian-installer. Due to lack of small scalable CJK font at > 2005 and limited RAM disk size, I made a "workaround" font package > ttf-compact-fonts (former name). This font package made a list of "may > use" characters from d-i po files and some other packages, then > rebuilt reduced font with the list by modifying other font packages; > vlgothic, unfont, and arphic-uming. (ja.ttf: 197392 bytes, ko.ttf: > 152000 bytes, zh.ttf: 1258276 bytes. total: 1607668 bytes.) Thanks for the detailed history, which matches what I've gathered while trying to update this package once in a while. :) > After some tests, I believe it's time to use fonts-droid instead of > ttf-cjk-compact. > > Test: > - - screenshots: http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i-font/sc/ > - - graphical netboot mini.iso: http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i-font/mini.iso (50MB) > > Step: > 1. Modify fonts-android to provide fonts-android-udeb which has only > DroidSansFallback.ttf. > patch: http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i-font/fonts-android.diff → Uploaded to sid, reached stretch already. > 2. After fonts-android-udeb is installed to the mirror, > Modify d-i/installer to use fonts-droid-udeb instead of ttf-cjk-compact-udeb. > patch: http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i-font/installer.diff → I've just performed some tests, and building + comparing a few screens for C, J, and K looks good to me. To be inexperienced eyes, the old glyphs for all 3 languages look a bit thiner and new ones a bit sharper, but sizes are similar. As usual, we can adjust the size if desired, on a per-language basis. (I find it a bit difficult to distinguish all details in Traditional Chinese for example, while Korean and Japanese don't seem that hard to “read” ;)). I'm seeing a size increase similar to what you're quoting: building netboot-gtk on amd64 means initrd.gz grows from 35 MB to 36 MB; unpacked, it goes from 105 MB to 108 MB. I agree this increase in worthwhile as maintaining the ttf-cjk-compact hack is quite a burden, and doesn't provide us with reasonable results, as some glyphs can regularly go missing… > 3. Remove ttf-cjk-compact from unstable and testing. → We can ask for a removal from unstable once the next debian-installer upload is performed. I've added a note on my side. As usual, the removal will propagate to testing once it has happened on unstable, and once there are no more reverse dependencies. > Pros: > - d-i code gets smarter way. > - most CJK characters will be shown correctly. > - replacing ttf-cjk-compact with DroidSansFallback doesn't break > other languages. (as far as I saw) > - Chinese gets sans-serif. > > Cons: > - increases +2MB for each graphical initrd. > jessie-amd64/cdrom/gtk/initrd.gz: 25557641 -> 281535694 > hd-media/gtk/initrd.gz: 27747025 -> 30340894 > netboot/gtk/initrd.gz: 34425758 -> 37539446 > netboot/gtk/mini.iso: 49283072 -> 52428800 > - Some Japanese characters look bit funny. > (I believe it is negligible for installer.) > > Note: > - Noto family, brand-new Google's free and well-designed font, is > too big. For example NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc is 17MB. > - DroidSansFallbackFull doesn't include Korean Hangul characters. Thanks for the detailed pros & cons & notes, that's much appreciated! Patch for debian-installer pushed a few minutes ago, it will be used for daily builds starting with the 2015-08-12 ones. (If anyone wonders, I've just removed the /git/d-i/ttf-cjk-compact.git repository from alioth, as it's not going to be used at all.) Mraw, KiBi.
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