Hi guys,
Okay, I guess it's time things got straightened out with regards to
scalable fonts in Debian.
As you are all probably aware, there is no current Debian Policy governing
fonts other than fonts for X, and no Policy at all regarding TrueType
fonts.
Policy is already frozen for woody, but that doesn't mean we can't work
something out between ourselves, implement it now, and get a policy
proposal written up for inclusion later.
There are a few guiding principles that I think should be adhered to
when writing up a Debian Font Policy:
1) Fonts should go in an FHS-compatible location. This probably means
/usr/share/fonts, which some packages already use.
2) /usr/share/fonts should probably be broken into subdirectories
indicating the file format of the font. E.g.:
/usr/share/fonts/truetype
/usr/share/fonts/type1
Again, some packages already do this.
3) Per FHS, only static data should go into /usr/share. This is not an
appropriate place for fonts.dir files, because these can change. See
the Debian X Font policy.
4) A subdirectory of /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts should be created and used
in the short run to make these fonts accessible to font rasterizers for
the X Window System. These directories should not contain fonts
themselves, but should contain symlinks on a per-file basis to, e.g.,
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/font.ttf
5) Again, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType should NOT be a symlink to
/usr/share/fonts/truetype.
6) In the long run, /usr/X11R6/lib/fonts should become a symlink into
/var/lib, because the fonts.* are updated on font package installation
and removal.
As a practical matter, I propose:
1) To add /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType to dexconf-generated
XF86Config{,-4} files, to /etc/X11/fs/config, and to /etc/X11/XftConfig;
2) That maintainers of packages containing Type1, and TrueType fonts:
A) install them to /usr/share/fonts/{truetype,type1,type3} as
appropriate;
B) provide fonts.scale files per existing Debian X Font Policy;
C) symlink each individual font file (.pfa, .pfb, .afm, .ttf,
etc.) from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/{Type1,TrueType} to
/usr/share/fonts/{truetype,type1};
D) invoke update-fonts-{alias,scale,dir} as prescribed in
existing Debian Policy.
For the time being, I propose that xfonts-scalable be grandfathered and
permitted to install files directly into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,
though I may go ahead and change this before woody releases if testing
demonstrates that I can do it without breaking anything.
Is there anything I'm missing? Any comments on the above?
--
G. Branden Robinson | Communism is just one step on the
Debian GNU/Linux | long road from capitalism to
branden@debian.org | capitalism.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Russian saying
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