[Fwd: Font issues (mkfontdir & friends not getting run) with F-8]

Hans de Goede j.w.r.degoede at hhs.nl
Tue Nov 20 13:37:06 UTC 2007


Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Le Mar 20 novembre 2007 13:11, Hans de Goede a écrit :
>> Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> 
>>> Whatever solution you choose forcing installation of core fonts
>>> backend by the main font package is a no-go for modern fonts
>>> (TTF/OTF,
>>> maybe Type 1 too).
>> What do you mean with the "core fonts backend"?
> 
> Fonts accessed through the original X core protocol. Official
> X11/XFree86/Xorg name of what you are writing about.
> 
> (http://keithp.com/~keithp/talks/xtc2001/paper/)
> 
>>> You can split the core font scriptlet parts in a
>>> subpackage, or ship pre-generated files, as long as you do not
>>> impact
>>> the vast majority of users who have no need for core fonts.
>>>
>> Yes, assuming that with the "core fonts backend" you mean mkfontdir &
>> friends,
>> then I agree, having a dependency on these is not a good plan, so I
>> see 2 options:
>> 1) Use pregenerated files (I just checked there contents and I see
>> nothing
>>     different from how they looked in the XFree86 3.x days, so I do
>> not believe
>>     these are xorg version / arch / dpi dependent). This is the
>> prefered option.
> 
> This was changed to scriptlets in the time we still had people caring
> about core fonts so I wouldn't assume there were no technical reason
> for the change. But I actively don't care whether core fonts work or
> not so if you believe this will work and are ready to shoulder the
> resulting QA you're free to go this way.
> 

I believe the technical reason was the split from a monolithic X to many small 
packages, and this caused multiple font packages that installe fonts into one 
dir, thats a scheme (multiple packages installing fonts into the same dir) 
which will not work with pre generated fonts.scale and fonts.dir files, other 
then that I see no reason why this could not work.

And if we include pre-generated fonts.scale / fonts.dir files in all fonts 
packages which install a symlink under /etc/X11/fonpath.d, and 2 packages turn 
out to share a dir we will get a fileconflict and find out soon enough.

Also please understand that I'm not trying to necessarily change things here 
esp. not for the sake of changing, I'm trying to fix things because currently, 
due to using scriptlets without deps, quite a few font packages which install a 
symlink under /etc/X11/fonpath.d do not have a fonts.dir / fonts.scale at all, 
as they were installed before mkfontdir was, and there scripts thus failed.

Regards,

Hans




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