[SOLVED] heads-up: freetype 2.7.1 and terminus-fonts

zakame · 04-27-2017, 07:52 AM

Just ran into this upon upgrade to current, but freetype 2.7 has an issue changing the name of the Terminus font, preventing it to be selected using the simple name:

Code:

    # on freetype 2.6
    $ fc-match "Terminus"
    ter-112n.pcf.gz: "xos4 Terminus" "Regular"

    # on freetype 2.7.1
    $ fc-match "Terminus"
    DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book" # LOLWAT

    # instead, it is seen via "xos4 Terminus" name
    $ fc-match "Terminus"
    ter-112n.pcf.gz: "xos4 Terminus" "Regular"

See https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/htm.../msg00019.html, apparently an issue since January. This appears to be correct behavior per https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/htm...msg00023.html:

Quote:

Well, it's not a problem but an expected change, which is mentioned in
FreeType's `CHANGES' file:

- PCF family names are made more `colourful'; they now include the
foundry and information whether they contain wide characters. For
example, you no longer get `Fixed' but rather `Sony Fixed' or
`Misc Fixed Wide'.

volkerdi · 04-27-2017, 01:26 PM

Reading the entire thread, the Freetype developer believes this is an improvement. In some ways I agree, as it prevents possible duplicate names in a list of fonts that turn out to be different fonts (i.e. "Fixed"), but it is disruptive to existing font configurations.

The developer was convinced to turn the long family names for PCF fonts off by default, and that's how it is in the git master version of freetype right now. I'm planning to do the same shortly in a -2 build of the freetype package.

zakame · 04-28-2017, 12:08 AM

Thanks, volkerdi! I wonder too if later it would be possible to later support both "xos4 Terminus" and "Terminus" names (maybe via a /etc/fonts/conf.d toggle.)

dederon · 04-28-2017, 04:25 AM

linux is such a mess.

thanks for pointing this out, i now use the workaround described here:

https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/htm.../msg00020.html

GazL · 04-28-2017, 05:12 AM

Yeah, I think I also preferred the new longer names and a fontconfig alias for backward compatibility, but as upstream have decided to flip the default back to the old shorter names it makes sense for slackware to follow their lead.

@volkerdi, thank you for doing the freetype.sh change.