On 08/12/2016 08:13 PM, Ken Moffat wrote:
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.
Yes, this was leftover from comparison of monolithic vs. modular Xorg
and the resultant mess is largely my fault! :-) As to the parenthetical
question, I don't actually recall now. I was thinking they were the same
version (6.8 sounds like it might be right), and we also had XFree86 at
the same time for at least a little while. Yes, three X11R6 packages in
the book at once! :-)
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.
Yes, general rule of thumb, always create a directory before using unzip.
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).
Same thing for Gimp. :-) In my case, this was deliberate, however. Lots
of goofy fonts used for banners and what not.
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.
Never used fc-list before. Output was several pages, about a quarter of
my 10,000 line screen buffer. :-)
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.
There was some value in that at one time, or at least mentioning how to
force a non-default to the front of the line. I don't know if still the
same.
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.
I don't install Microsoft core fonts anymore, but I haven't even
installed LO on my home PCs in a long time. Probably not the best to
ask. If I ever need them, I have a tarball with them some place, but
many more are available in one of my VMs. :-)
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.
Hmm, I thought New Sung was absorbed by Arphic something like 10 years
ago. I haven't installed them in a long time. I'm fairly certain that I
have the version mentioned later in this thread laying around someplace.
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.
I used both UKai/UMing from
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/CJKUnifonts/Download for
Chinese coverage. Though I just now realized that I don't even have
UMing installed. :-/ I probably have a copy of Arphic still laying
around if you want to compare.
3.6 Kochi fonts - they work, but some people seem to prefer e.g.
Sawarabi or VL-Gothic.
Used to install them, but haven't noticed anything missing...
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.
I also have carried Baekmuk
(https://kldp.net/baekmuk/release/865-baekmuk-ttf-2.2.tar.gz) for a long
time for Korean and these seem to be updated frequently enough.
I still install Sazanami for Japanese at
http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.jp/efont/10087/sazanami-20040629.tar.bz2 but
these are obviously long in the tooth. A quick Google search has some
love for Takao as a replacement for the IPA fonts (this is what Ubuntu
uses). https://launchpad.net/takao-fonts
Take any or none of the above as I don't actually read any of these
languages. I have no idea if the rendered glyphs are even correct, but
they seem plausible. At least the "Learn Japanese" and "Learn Chinese
(Cantonese)" flash cards I ran across while trying to find links have
text that matches the images. For my need, it basically, it comes down
to whether I see any empty squares when I need to cross a web page in
these languages, and I don't see anything that strikes me as ugly,
grainy, or with artifacts.
AFAICT, I'm all good for my CJK coverage with just the above three and
the DE required ones. Also, Arabic, Hebrew, and Cyrillic seem to be
covered with the DE ones as well. I might not even need/use the three
CJK ones I install special as Noto seems to cover those as well. IDK,
and that's all the reason to add this page. Thanks for bringing it up.
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.
Have them all installed! A quick you don't need this, this, this, or
that would be very useful as these do take up some space. :-)
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.
All of the above sounds good to me. Seems a place where we are lacking.
I'd also like a mention of some of those sub-directories. In packages
that have them, I copy the entire tree to it's own sub-directory, but
I've no recollection as to why. I just that I remember at some point
somebody, possibly you, or maybe Alexander, told me to do so (and I'm
sure it was explained why, but I just don't remember).
--DJ
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