Package: fontconfig Version: 2.6.0-1 Severity: wishlist
So I just installed a bunch of fonts and BOY IS IT SLOW. There are two things going on. (1) "Updating fontconfig cache for /usr/share/fonts/..." (2) "Regenerating fonts cache" #2 is done independently by a very large number of font packages calling HOME=/root fc-cache -f -v 1>/var/log/fontconfig.log 2>&1 #1 is done by a large number of packages calling defoma-font --reregister-all /etc/defoma/hints/XXX.hints which ends up calling /usr/share/defoma/scripts/fontconfig.defoma, which calls fc-cache -f and fc-cache -s *TWICE*. So fc-cache can be run four or more times *per font installation*. And it actually needs to be run precisely once per apt-get run. The obvious way to fix this is dpkg triggers. fontconfig should have a trigger on any change to /usr/share/fonts which causes it to regenerate the cache. fontconfig.triggers would look like this: interest /usr/share/fonts And fontconfig.postinst would be patched like this: --- fontconfig.postinst 2008-09-14 12:52:55.000000000 -0400 +++ fontconfig.postinst.new 2008-09-14 12:54:27.000000000 -0400 @@ -37,6 +37,8 @@ done printf "done.\n" fi +fi +if [ "$1" = "configure" ] || [ "$1" = "triggered" ] # Force regeneration of all fontconfig cache files. mkdir -p /var/cache/fontconfig printf "Regenerating fonts cache... " This would allow bugs to be filed on all packages (except fontconfig and defoma) which run fc-cache in postinst, to just remove those explicit invocations. That would speed things up quite a bit. This should be done *now*. --- The interaction with defoma is much trickier and a much larger problem. First of all, defoma *could* be invoked on a nonstandard directory, which would require a hand run of fc-cache. It could also be invoked by hand for locally installed fonts in /usr/local or the user's home directory. Second, the current fontconfig.defoma script does something very ugly in its 'term' subroutine. It runs fc-cache, then blows away /var/lib/defoma/fontconfig.d/fonts.conf, then runs fc-list to determine the accessible font directories "without" defoma, then rebuilds /var/lib/defoma/fontconfig.d/fonts.conf, then runs fc-cache AGAIN. This is hideous and very, very slow. I don't see any way to avoid this when using locally installed fonts, for which it is pretty much doing the right thing. There's got to be some way to bypass this for packaged fonts, however. I figure we can simply detect whether we're dealing with a subdirectory of /usr/share/fonts, and assume that we're in a 'packaged' situation then, and if not, assume that we're not. I almost finished a patch to do exactly this, but I hit a problem. The problem is that the rebuilding of /var/lib/defoma/fontconfig.d/fonts.conf *both* rebuilds the directory list (which we can just skip for fonts in the standard directories under /usr/share/fonts), *and* the aliases and substitutes lists (which I believe we *can't* skip -- if we can skip them, tell me and I'll attach the patch for fontconfig.defoma). I'm not currently seeing how to preserve the directory list while rebuilding the aliases and substitutes lists. If you could break the file into two pieces, one for the directories and one for the aliases and substitutions, it would be quite straightforward to rewrite fontconfig.defoma to skip all the tedious cache rebuilds when it's dealing with a font in /usr/share/fonts. (All such fonts should be handled by dpkg, and therefore we can rely on the trigger to rebuild the cache.) -- Nathanael Nerode (neroden at gcc dot gnu dot org) Versions of packages fontconfig depends on: ii fontconfig-config 2.6.0-1 generic font configuration library ii libc6 2.7-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libfontconfig1 2.6.0-1 generic font configuration library fontconfig recommends no packages. Versions of packages fontconfig suggests: ii defoma 0.11.10-0.2 Debian Font Manager -- automatic f -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
