Re: [PATCH 2/3] profiles: Add fonts-dir-file hook.

[Alex Kost <alezost@gmail.com>]

Ludovic Courtès (2016-07-02 17:34 +0300) wrote:

> Alex Kost <alezost@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> * guix/profiles.scm (fonts-dir-file): New procedure.
>> (%default-profile-hooks): Add it.
>
> [...]
>
> A potential problem with this hook is that it pulls mkfontscale and
> mkfontdir regardless of whether they are needed; I can’t really think of
> a way to avoid it though.

Yes, I also don't like it.  We have the same problem with
'info-file-dir' hook: it always pulls texinfo and gzip, but not all
profiles include info manuals.

> Also, how does it relate to this:
>
>   commit bf9655f57d2442d56661594b80f6d0031ca0ae73
>   Author: Eric Bavier <bavier@member.fsf.org>
>   Date:   Mon Oct 19 06:44:23 2015 -0500
>
>       font-alias: Install dummy fonts.dir files.
>
>       * gnu/packages/xorg.scm (font-alias)[arguments]: New 'install-fonts-dir'
>         phase.
>
> ?

It doesn't relate at all.  This hook generates "fonts.dir" only for
"share/fonts/truetype" directory.  Directories with X fonts are not
touched, because all sub-directories of "share/fonts/X11" already
contain "fonts.dir" files (font-adobe75dpi, font-misc-misc and other X
font packages install "fonts.dir").

'font-alias' package does not contain fonts.dir file because it doesn't
make sense: this package does not provide any font.  It just installs
"fonts.alias" files inside "share/fonts/X11/{75dpi,100dpi,cyrillic,misc}"
directories.  Eric made this commit for one particular case: to make it
possible to use font aliases in the default X server configuration
('xorg-configuration-file' in (gnu services xorg) module).

Just to mention, I think we shouldn't modify 'font-alias' package as it
leads to a bug <http://bugs.gnu.org/22100>, and should do some other
workaround.  I have 2 ideas (not sure if they make any sense):

1) To add a special package (font-alias-with-fonts.dir) that will be used
in 'xorg-configuration-file'.

2) To do 'union-build' on packages with X fonts and aliases and to use it
in the X config.  With this, we can revert that Eric's commit, and
everything should just work (I mean the X config will work and the bug
will be fixed).

-- 
Alex