Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[HWRoitzsch]

Hello Guix Users,

So apparently all that was needed after the steps suggested on the
mailing list was a restart of my machine or possibly a re-login. I say
that, because today I started my machine and started Icecat and to my
surprise the fonts were not all monospace any longer. So it must have
been, that some of the things I did worked, but was not picked up by
Icecat without restart, or possibly re-login, as it is unusual on
GNU/Linux to require a full restart of the machine.

I will try to summarize what I tried or what was suggested to fix it, so
maybe if someone finds this in the future it will help them concisely.

 1. change preferences inside Icecat for what fonts to use (but in
    theory this only applies to websites and not to Icecat GUI).
 2. create a `chrome` folder in my profile and create a `userChorme.css`
    inside the folder, containing CSS rules for the Icecat GUI.
 3. install fonts via Guix: `font-dejavu`, `font-liberation`
 4. run `fc-cache -f`
 5. create a `settings.ini` in `~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini` and put
    in there the following:

    [Settings]
    gtk-font-name=DejaVu Sans Book 11

 6. install `fontconfig` via Guix and run `fc-cache -f`
 7. install `libxft` via Guix
 8. install `cairo` via Guix
 9. install `pango` via Guix

After each of the steps I completely closed IceCat and started it again,
which did no change to everything being monospaced.

Finally I shutdown my machine yesterday and started it again today and
the issue suddenly disappeared. And the warnings also disappeared from
command line output when running IceCat from there. Only the following
was logged:

JavaScript error:
jar:file:///gnu/store/rllrc55ygi4yhxnhq8v41ynl6mg5ak56-icecat-60.3.0-gnu1/lib/icecat/omni.ja!/components/XULStore.js,
line 65: Error: Can't find profile directory.
1557058011027    addons.webextension.https-everywhere@eff.org    WARN   
Please specify whether you want browser_style or not in your
browser_action options.
GLib-GIO-Message: 12:06:51.903: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. 
Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.

I do not know what exactly helped, but that is all I can remember
trying. I just hope, that when/of I want to change the font of the UI
again, it will not take me as long to figure out how again :D But then
again how often do I change a GUI font.

Thank you all for your help and ideas! Now I have a very usable browser
again.

If an `strace` output would still be helpful, I could provide that too.

Best regards,

Zelphir

Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Tanguy Le Carrour]

Hi HWRoitzsch, Hi Guix,


Le 05/05, HWRoitzsch a écrit :
> So apparently all that was needed […]
>  1. change preferences inside Icecat for what fonts to use (but in
>     theory this only applies to websites and not to Icecat GUI).
>  2. create a `chrome` folder in my profile and create a `userChorme.css`
>     inside the folder, containing CSS rules for the Icecat GUI. […]
>  7. install `libxft` via Guix
>  8. install `cairo` via Guix
>  9. install `pango` via Guix […]
> Finally I shutdown my machine yesterday and started it again today

I didn't do those steps, but…


>  3. install fonts via Guix: `font-dejavu`, `font-liberation`
>  4. run `fc-cache -f`
>  5. create a `settings.ini` in `~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini` and put
>     in there the following:
> […]
>  6. install `fontconfig` via Guix and run `fc-cache -f`

I did this and restarted Icecat and… everything is back to normal!

Thank you so much! :-)

Hope it'll work for the others too!

Regards


-- 
Tanguy

Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

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HWRoitzsch,

I'm glad that you've got a working IceCat, even if you have no 
idea how you got there :-)

HWRoitzsch wrote:
> Finally I shutdown my machine yesterday and started it again 
> today and
> the issue suddenly disappeared. And the warnings also 
> disappeared from
> command line output when running IceCat from there. Only the 
> following
> was logged:
>
> JavaScript error:
> jar:file:///gnu/store/rllrc55ygi4yhxnhq8v41ynl6mg5ak56-icecat-60.3.0-gnu1/lib/icecat/omni.ja!/components/XULStore.js,
> line 65: Error: Can't find profile directory.
> 1557058011027    addons.webextension.https-everywhere@eff.org 
> WARN   
> Please specify whether you want browser_style or not in your
> browser_action options.
> GLib-GIO-Message: 12:06:51.903: Using the 'memory' GSettings 
> backend. 
> Your settings will not be saved or shared with other 
> applications.

FWIW, none of those messages are suspicious.  I see all of them 
with varying degrees of regularity.

Kind regards,

T G-R

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Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

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Hello HWRoitzsch,

HWRoitzsch <hwroitzsch@gmail.com> writes:

> So apparently all that was needed after the steps suggested on the
> mailing list was a restart of my machine or possibly a re-login.

may it be connected to the evironment?

I guess you are using Guix System on bare metal or VM, I'm using Guix on
a foreign distro instead

sometime installing new software updates $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile [1]
adding needed env variables, those variables are usually loaded via
~/.profile when using Guix on foreign distro so sometimes I have to
reload ~/.profile to get an updated environment

I have not enough experience with a full Guix System: could it be the
same? this would explain why you had to logout/login for IceCat to use
the right fonts

[...]

HTH! Gio'

[1] GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile" (means using default profile)

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

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Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Mark H Weaver]

Giovanni Biscuolo <g@xelera.eu> writes:

> HWRoitzsch <hwroitzsch@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> So apparently all that was needed after the steps suggested on the
>> mailing list was a restart of my machine or possibly a re-login.
>
> may it be connected to the evironment?
>
> I guess you are using Guix System on bare metal or VM, I'm using Guix on
> a foreign distro instead
>
> sometime installing new software updates $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile [1]
> adding needed env variables, those variables are usually loaded via
> ~/.profile when using Guix on foreign distro so sometimes I have to
> reload ~/.profile to get an updated environment
>
> I have not enough experience with a full Guix System: could it be the
> same? this would explain why you had to logout/login for IceCat to use
> the right fonts

This sounds very plausible to me.  My guess is that one of the packages
that Zelphir installed added new environment variable settings that are
needed for IceCat to find its fonts.

      Mark

Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Zelphir Kaltstahl]

Hi Giovanni,

No, I use it on a Xubuntu distribution, not on Guix SD and not in a VM.

It may still have been caused by something somewhere in my environment,
of course and `source`ing again `~/.profile` is also an idea. I am not
sure it would change anything in my setup, the way I set variables in there.

Regards,

Zelphir

On 5/5/19 7:43 PM, Giovanni Biscuolo wrote:
> Hello HWRoitzsch,
>
> HWRoitzsch <hwroitzsch@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> So apparently all that was needed after the steps suggested on the
>> mailing list was a restart of my machine or possibly a re-login.
> may it be connected to the evironment?
>
> I guess you are using Guix System on bare metal or VM, I'm using Guix on
> a foreign distro instead
>
> sometime installing new software updates $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile [1]
> adding needed env variables, those variables are usually loaded via
> ~/.profile when using Guix on foreign distro so sometimes I have to
> reload ~/.profile to get an updated environment
>
> I have not enough experience with a full Guix System: could it be the
> same? this would explain why you had to logout/login for IceCat to use
> the right fonts
>
> [...]
>
> HTH! Gio'
>
> [1] GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile" (means using default profile)
>

Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Zelphir Kaltstahl]

Ah it could be, that a package changed something in `~/.profile`. I will
check … No it still looks the same as before. Also I think any
installation adding something to my `~/.profile` should tell the user
about such a change. No package I installed yesterday did so. Glad that
the packages did not unknowingly change something in there.

On 5/5/19 10:21 PM, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Giovanni Biscuolo <g@xelera.eu> writes:
>
>> HWRoitzsch <hwroitzsch@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> So apparently all that was needed after the steps suggested on the
>>> mailing list was a restart of my machine or possibly a re-login.
>> may it be connected to the evironment?
>>
>> I guess you are using Guix System on bare metal or VM, I'm using Guix on
>> a foreign distro instead
>>
>> sometime installing new software updates $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile [1]
>> adding needed env variables, those variables are usually loaded via
>> ~/.profile when using Guix on foreign distro so sometimes I have to
>> reload ~/.profile to get an updated environment
>>
>> I have not enough experience with a full Guix System: could it be the
>> same? this would explain why you had to logout/login for IceCat to use
>> the right fonts
> This sounds very plausible to me.  My guess is that one of the packages
> that Zelphir installed added new environment variable settings that are
> needed for IceCat to find its fonts.
>
>       Mark

Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Mark H Weaver]

Zelphir Kaltstahl <zelphirkaltstahl@gmail.com> writes:

> Ah it could be, that a package changed something in `~/.profile`. I will
> check … No it still looks the same as before.

Guix never modifies your ~/.profile.  The relevant file is:
~/.guix-profile/etc/profile, which is generated each time you update
your user profile.  On a Guix system, it is sourced from /etc/profile.

On other systems, you should arrange to source that file in your login
shell with GUIX_PROFILE set appropriately, e.g. with the following code
in your ~/.bash_profile or equivalent:

  GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile" ; \
  source "$HOME/.guix-profile/etc/profile"

This is recommended in section 4.2 of the Guix manual, here:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html

> Also I think any installation adding something to my `~/.profile`
> should tell the user about such a change.

Again, Guix will never do this.  However, 'guix package' should tell you
if you're missing environment variable settings that are needed by the
newly installed packages.

> No package I installed yesterday did so.

Hmm.  Are you confident about this?  If so, that casts doubt on my
hypothesis that this was about missing environment variable settings.
Unfortunately, I currently have no other hypothesis to explain why a
reboot was required to fix your IceCat.

        Mark

Re: IceCat from Guix all monospaced font – Summary

[Zelphir Kaltstahl]

On 5/5/19 11:46 PM, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Zelphir Kaltstahl <zelphirkaltstahl@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Ah it could be, that a package changed something in `~/.profile`. I will
>> check … No it still looks the same as before.
> Guix never modifies your ~/.profile.  The relevant file is:
> ~/.guix-profile/etc/profile, which is generated each time you update
> your user profile.  On a Guix system, it is sourced from /etc/profile.
>
> On other systems, you should arrange to source that file in your login
> shell with GUIX_PROFILE set appropriately, e.g. with the following code
> in your ~/.bash_profile or equivalent:
>
>   GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile" ; \
>   source "$HOME/.guix-profile/etc/profile"
>
> This is recommended in section 4.2 of the Guix manual, here:
>
>   https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html


Yep, I did that : )

>> Also I think any installation adding something to my `~/.profile`
>> should tell the user about such a change.
> Again, Guix will never do this.  However, 'guix package' should tell you
> if you're missing environment variable settings that are needed by the
> newly installed packages.
>
>> No package I installed yesterday did so.
> Hmm.  Are you confident about this?  If so, that casts doubt on my
> hypothesis that this was about missing environment variable settings.
> Unfortunately, I currently have no other hypothesis to explain why a
> reboot was required to fix your IceCat.

I was only referring to changing my `~/.profile`, not the one under
`~/.guix-profile/etc/profile`. When I wrote the message, I was not aware
of `~/.guix-profile/etc/profile`. Yes, I am sure no package changed my
`~/.profile`. Which is good : )

Thanks for making clear which profile was meant. I guess that changes to
`~/.guix-profile/etc/profile` could be the reason then, the issue
disappeared after restart / relogin.