RE: font policy changes

[unifoundry@unifoundry.com]

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: font policy changes
> From: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
> Date: Sun, July 13, 2008 10:13 pm
> To: unifoundry@unifoundry.com
> Cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org, debian-mentors@lists.debian.org, 
> "Anthony Fok" <foka@debian.org>
>
> unifoundry@unifoundry.com writes:
>
> > 3) Even if "mkfontdir" were invoked directly or if it's okay to give
> > "update-fonts-dir" an absolute path (in which case its man page needs to
> > be updated and the warning removed), isn't it also advisable to run
> > "xset fp rehash" in postinst and postrm scripts? That program is the
> > standard mechanism for updating installed fonts on recent versions of
> > X11, including in Debian and other GNU/Linux distributions.
>
> Hm. That's an interesting thought, although it's going to fail if no X
> server is currently running, correct?
>
> -- 
> Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

True.  I guess that would have to be trapped gracefully.

Would running "fc-cache -f" be preferable?  It will identify bitmap and
TrueType fonts.  There are two things I don't like about that command
though: 1) it has no man page (I guess I can write one) although
"fc-cache --help" lists options; 2) I don't think it dies gracefully --
it can corrupt a cache if there is an error, and doesn't unwind to the
old cache version (unless the program has been improved recently).  Is
that tolerable?


Paul Hardy
unifoundry@unifoundry.com