Bug#1051314: fonts-recommended: recognise noto-core as alternative to dejavu-core
Adam Borowski wrote:
On Wed, Sep 06, 2023 at 07:22:36AM +0100, Justin B Rye wrote:
Various major desktops now default to fonts-noto-core instead of
fonts-dejavu-core. During a conversation with a
fontconfig-config maintainer on debian-l10n-english about the
knock-on effects
("https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-english/2023/09/msg00001.html";)
I noticed that the dependency chains ensuring that fonts-noto-core
is actually installed at all are surprisingly weak.
After our conversation I made two installs for test purposes:
1. Debian 12 with GNOME
Result: fonts-noto-core was not included by default.
2. Debian trixie with GNOME
Result: fonts-noto-core was included by default.
I suspect that the change can be explained by this commit:
https://salsa.debian.org/freedesktop-team/fontconfig/-/commit/5aa10dde
Alas, noto has the downside of making font pickers next to useless,
as it declares every single of languages it supports as a separate
font family. So instead off just "Noto Sans" "Noto Mono" "Noto
Slightly Serifed", you have "Noto Western Klingon" "Noto Eastern
Klingon" and so on, making the list of available fonts one big noto
fest.
If you assume that users often want to change much, I can understand
that you see that as a disadvantage. OTOH, a user who wants to do it
differently can uninstall fonts-noto-core and with that get a
significantly shorter list.
Myself is involved in changing the default selection of fonts and font
configuration for Ubuntu. In that context we focus on offering the users
a sensible default, which most users are comfortable with, and the way
Noto provides different fonts for different scripts and purposes is an
advantage to achieve that. Ubuntu is about to prefer Noto for most
scripts, but to the extent exceptions proves to be motivated, that can
be handled relatively easy via font configuration. Something that would
have been harder with DejaVu Sans as the preferred font.
I have no firm opinion, at least not yet, on the role of
fonts-recommended and whether the proposed change is motivated. But I
just posted a list message about the ongoing transition from DejaVu to
Noto, to reach a broader audience:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2023/09/msg00053.html
Do feel encouraged to respond to it.
--
Cheers,
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
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