Re: Ubuntu missing screen fonts for symbols: solution.

[G. Milde]

On  3.09.08, Paul Johnson wrote:
> I was asking about missing or incorrect symbols yesterday.  I found a
> solution.

I can only spead for Debian, but as Ubuntu uses the same package
format, things might be similar.

> In Lyx on Ubuntu 8.04, I noticed that SOME mathematical characters do
> not show properly on the screen. 
...
> So far, in Ubuntu, I've found 2 solutions.

> One approach is to install the font package
> "http://movementarian.org/latex-xft-fonts-0.1.tar.gz"; under ~/.fonts
> and run "fc-cache -fv".
...
> the above workaround also works if one uses the supposedly better
> BaKoMa fonts, but I don't see much difference myself.
...

> After some googling, I learned that "cmsy10.ttf" is available as an
> optional Ubuntu package "latex-xft-fonts".

The apt-file command (package apt-file) provides a convenient way to
find out which Debian (or Ubuntu?) package a given file is in.

Generally, if I have the choice between installing from a tar-archive
or a package for my system, I prefer the package. 
   Example: before downloading and installing the recommended
latex-xft-fonts tarball, I'll check in my install-manager (aptitude)
whether a package of same (or similar) name is available.

> So I suppose that many Ubuntu users have that installed automatically
> so they never fight the mystery of missing screen fonts. I'll suggest
> to Ubuntu's lyx packager that latex-xft-fonts should be a required
> package.

In Debian, latex-xft-fonts is "suggested". I agree that the more
convincing "recommended" might be the better choice but there is no need
to "require" latex-xft-fonts. 

("Require" means that the requiring package is completely broken without
the requirement, while "recommended" means that without the recommended
package the behaviour is impaired in some way.)

Günter