RE: font policy changes
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: font policy changes
> From: Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>
> Date: Wed, July 16, 2008 8:47 am
> To: unifoundry@unifoundry.com
> Cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org, debian-mentors@lists.debian.org
>
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 08:37:12 -0700, unifoundry@unifoundry.com wrote:
>
> > Thank you. I can write a proposed addition to the Policy Manual for
> > TrueType fonts after I'm done with the current package unless someone
> > else wants to do it. The "update-fonts-dir" utility currently only
> > handles fonts in the X11 tree (not TrueType), and even then the new X11
> > font directory options to look under /usr/share/fonts/X11/ ("-7" and
> > "--x11r7-layout") don't work on my stable release (Etch 4.0r3).
> >
> These options are no-ops. What do you mean by "don't work"?
> Also please stop breaking the thread.
>
> Cheers,
> Julien
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
What I meant by "don't work" is that, as you mention, these two options
are no-ops.
According to the update-fonts-dir(1) man page, these options should not
be no-ops:
===============
update-fonts-dir creates a fonts.dir file in an X font directory by
invoking mkfontdir(1x) with the appropriate arguments....For each
directory, which is simply the last component of its path (such as
'75dpi' or 'misc'), update-fonts-dir will generate either
/usr/lib/X11/fonts/directory/fonts.dir or
/usr/share/fonts/X11/directory/fonts.dir from the fonts.scale and font
files found within it.
-7, --x11r7-layout switches the font layout to the one introduced in
X11R7: fonts in /usr/share/fonts/X11/directory (default is: fonts in
/usr/lib/X11/fonts/directory)
===============
Here are examples of what happens in practice on Etch (4.0r3, i386 DVD
install), showing where the man page says the program should look versus
what actually happens.
Invocation: update-fonts-dir misc
Documented Path: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc
Actual Path: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc
Status: works as advertised (and complains that
/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc doesn't exist)
Invocation: update-fonts-dir -7 misc
Documented Path: /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc
Actual Path: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc
Status: looks in wrong directory; "-7" has no effect
Invocation: update-fonts-dir --x11r7-layout misc
Documented Path: /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc
Actual Path: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc
Status: looks in wrong directory; "--x11r7-layout" has no
effect
Invocation: update-fonts-dir /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc
Documented Path: /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc
Actual Path: /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc
Status: "warning: absolute path /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc was
provided"
===============
With the current stable release, use of /usr/lib/X11/fonts is
deprecated. This gives a few options:
a) Leave "-7" and "--x11r7-layout" as no-ops, but change the default
font top directory from "/usr/lib/X11/fonts" to "/usr/share/fonts/X11"
in the source code (so it never looks in "/usr/lib/X11/fonts" anymore).
b) Change "-7" and "--x11r7-layout" to work the way the man page says
they should work.
c) Change update-fonts-dir to accept an absolute font path without
complaint.
d) Change update-fonts-dir to look by default in both the old top-level
directory and the new one.
e) Phase out update-fonts-dir in favor of something else that also looks
in the truetype/ and other font directories outside the customary X11
font directories (for example, defoma or fc-cache). Remove the mandated
use of update-fonts-dir from the Policy Manual (it doesn't handle
truetype fonts anyways).
f) Other suggestions?
Paul Hardy
unifoundry@unifoundry.com
Reply to: