How to use foreign-distro fonts without symlink hack?

How to use foreign-distro fonts without symlink hack?

[Jorge P. de Morais Neto]

Hi.  I use an updated Guix atop Debian buster on an x86-64 notebook.  I
had font problems in GNU Emacs.  I took hours to recognize them as such
and find the cause: Emacs was not using the fonts from Debian in
`/usr/share/fonts'.  I then worked around the problem by symlinking
/usr/share/fonts to `~/.local/share/fonts' and invoking `fc-cache'
(don't remember the exact parameters I used).  Then additional fonts
appeared in the output of `fc-list' and were indeed available to Emacs.
Two questions:

1. Could this symlink cause problems for Debian applications?
2. Why does not Guix `fc-cache' look in `/usr/share/fonts'?

Regards
-- 
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- I am Brazilian.  I hope my English is correct and I welcome feedback.
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Re: How to use foreign-distro fonts without symlink hack?

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Hi Jorge!

jorge+list@disroot.org (Jorge P. de Morais Neto) writes:

> 1. Could this symlink cause problems for Debian applications?

Should be fine.

> 2. Why does not Guix `fc-cache' look in `/usr/share/fonts'?

Because Guix does not know about files outside the store or the home
directory.  This is by design.

Another way to change this behaviour is to add /usr/share/fonts to
~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<!-- /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file to configure system font access -->
<fontconfig>
<dir>/usr/share/fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Hope this helps! :)

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: How to use foreign-distro fonts without symlink hack?

[Jorge P. de Morais Neto]

Em [2020-01-05 dom 19:34:24+0100], Pierre Neidhardt escreveu:

> jorge+list@disroot.org (Jorge P. de Morais Neto) writes:
>
>> 1. Could this symlink cause problems for Debian applications?
>
> Should be fine.
>
>> 2. Why does not Guix `fc-cache' look in `/usr/share/fonts'?
>
> Because Guix does not know about files outside the store or the home
> directory.  This is by design.

Thank you for clarifying.

Regards
-- 
- <https://jorgemorais.gitlab.io/justice-for-rms/>
- I am Brazilian.  I hope my English is correct and I welcome feedback.
- Please adopt free formats like PDF, ODF, Org, LaTeX, Opus, WebM and 7z.
- Free/libre software for Replicant, LineageOS and Android: https://f-droid.org
- [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html][What is free software?]]