RE: font policy changes

[unifoundry@unifoundry.com]

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: font policy changes
> From: Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>
> Date: Mon, July 14, 2008 2:26 am
> To: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
> Cc: unifoundry@unifoundry.com,
> debian-devel@lists.debian.org,debian-mentors@lists.debian.org, Anthony
> Fok <foka@debian.org>
> 
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 22:13:27 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> 
> > 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?
> > 
> It will always fail, because the user running the script (root) won't
> normally have access to the X server.
>
> Cheers,
> Julien

It would only fail if you did not have an X server running, for example
if root were running in single-user mode.  But if an ordinary user logs
in using an X server in multi-user mode and does an "su" to root to run
apt-get, or of course if root logs in and runs X11, it works.  This
package isn't part of any default Debian installation, so I think a user
would most often be running apt-get inside an X11 environment.

"fc-cache -f" will run without an X server running.  Maybe that is the
best choice.


Paul Hardy
unifoundry@unifoundry.com