Now that I have updated my own website (linked from http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/x/xorg-config.html as the 'font-analysis' link at the end of "Xft Font Protocol" I would like to make some suggestions about how we handle fonts, as well as specific suggestions re the fonts used in kde5.
Sorry this is long, but I'd like to mention everything in one place. If there is agreement, I can create a ticket for moving TTF/OTF fonts to a new page (proposal at the end). 1. Core (bitmap) fonts. I still do not understand the need to install ALL of these, except that it was initially a way of checking that modular Xorg (6.9?) matched monolithic (6.8?). I only normally install font-adobe-100dpi, and that is primarily to get any errormessages from xscreensaver. I suppose people who use xterm might need some other fonts, but I see reports that that most distros do not make the bitmap fonts available to fontconfig, so only xterm (and urxvt, if you do not tell it which ttf fonts to use) would use them in that case - but most people think that bitmap fonts usually look pretty nasty in modern applications. Meanwhile, the current xscreensaver now has a saver which displays random glyphs, and for me it just gives a blank square, so I suppose that putting them all in might be useful for that. But, why both the 75 and 100dpi versions of font-adobe ? If people have a small screen, I can understand 75, but surely 100 will s uit most people these days ? Using everyth ing looks to me like unnecessary baggage, but I don't especially care. 2. TTF and OTF fonts - general points 2.1 We only cover these (apart from those mentioned for kde) in the "Xft Font Protocol" part of Xorg-7.7 Testing and Configuration : hiding them away there makes them look as if this is an obscure subject, whereas most people using a modern desktop will use software which expects to use TTF or OTF fonts (and for some languages, not only fontconfig but also pango). 2.2 I think the book would be much improved if ALL discussion of TTF and OTF fonts was put on its own page. Among other things we do not mention: 2.2.1 Licensing and documentation - for other packages we often suggest how to install docs. For fonts, some have docs, and most which are packaged wi ll have a license setting out what you can do (some generally-available fonts are only free for non-commercial use, those currently in the book, except Luxi (which you cannot modify), are libre. I don't suggest we should tell people the license, only that we should mention people migh t want to check it and perhaps install a copy of it. 2.2.2 A few linux-oriented fonts come in tarballs, but many others come in zip files - we should mention using unzip. And we should warn people th at some of them extract in to the current directory. 2.2.3 There is a big problem if you create content and have a lot of fonts - it can take a long while to scroll through the list of available fonts (even if you only installed Noto-hinted, so many of those are separate fonts for different writing systems). Even ignoring the waste of space (in your backups), this makes the system unnecessarily hard to use (e.g. in libreoffice). 2.2.4 Therefore, we should mention that people may wish to remove certain fonts after trying them out, and then use fc-cache again. Perhaps we should also remind people to use fc-list to review w hat has been installed. 2.2.5 For efficiency (particularly when running fc-cache), it is best to put fonts into small directories, e.g. /usr/share/fonts/dejavu, /usr/share/fonts/freefont, etc. 3. The fonts we mention on that page. This has had few revisions in recent years and is getting out of date. 3.1 I see little value in mentioning which fonts are the defaults for certain languages, because if you only have one font with the req uired glyph then that font will be used. Equally, the defaults DO change over time, and navigating through the conf files is less than obvious. 3.2 I cannot comment on the microsoft core fonts, and I wonder if we should stop mentioning them because they need rpm and a specific tool to get them out of the exe files - I have no idea what the license says. 3.3 Firefly New Sung - the link has been dead for some time. When I looked at fonts about three years ago there was an updated version called OpenDesktop fonts although it was in an srpm (use rpm2cpio) and hard to find. Back in about April I found a current version at github, but when I looked a few days ago it had been deleted. 3.5 Arphic fonts - link goes to UKai, I saw a comment a couple of hours ago that UMing are better for a Sans font - I do not agree, but they both seem to be popular with some Chinese users. 3.6 Kochi fonts - they work, but some people seem to prefer e.g. Sawarabi or VL-Gothic. 3.7 Baekmuk fonts - I like a couple of these, but fedora moved to Un-fonts several years ago under user pressure and I think fontconfig has been c hanged to prefer these. Nanum are also good. 3.9 Cantarell - these have actually improved a lot recently. 4. Fonts for kde. When I was last able to use any of kde, it still needed the oxygen fonts for 'startkde', although the kde devs apparently want everyone to use Noto fonts because those are "still actively developed" and the files generated for using gtk applications try to use Noto Sans. 4.1 oxygen-fonts - they now actually ship the fonts, it is not necessary to build them! In an ideal world that would make fontforge unnecessary (except for specialists), but ISTR there is a ticket say ing the oxygen - icons also need that. 4.2 Noto Fonts. 4.2.1 I submit that installing all of Noto-hinted is a waste of space. Many of the fonts are for historical writing systems for which none of us will ever encounter computer text. If people are using these, they should try them and then remove those which are no use to them. 4.2.2 And for people using the smaller noto-fonts, we need to point out that linux users should use the fonts from the 'hinted' directory. Proposal (to address parts 2 to 4) __________________________________ I suggest that we ought to provide a new page with general coverage of TTF/OTF fonts, replacing the Xft Font Protocol section and listing alternate modern fonts for CJK languages and otherwise not going into too much detail except where it is needed (Noto/noto below). And move the oxygen and Noto/noto fonts to that page. The oxygen fonts can drop out if kde stop requiring them. For oxygen, just note that the TTFs are in the tarball in various subdirectories. Call it "Choosing TTF and/or OTF fonts" Put it at the end of the X Window System Environment ch apter. Add it as a recommended runtime dependency for ALL desktop environments, also (at least) firefox, seamonkey, thunderbird. Probably also mention that people need to check not only if the package creates its own directory, but how any subdirectories are structured. ĸen -- `I shall take my mountains', said Lu-Tze. `The climate will be good for them.' -- Small Gods -- http://lists.linuxfromscratch.org/listinfo/blfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
