[PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Marius Bakke]

This fixes <https://bugs.gnu.org/41282> and <https://bugs.gnu.org/41241>.
Reported by Pierre Neidhardt, W Knight, and others.

* gnu/packages/fontutils.scm (fontconfig)[replacement]: New field.
(fontconfig/font-dejavu): New variable.
---
Guix,

This is a hack to make (some) fonts working when users don't have fonts
specified in their system configuration, and (crucially) places where
the fontconfig cache may be unavailable such as 'guix pack's.

I'm not sure whether font-dejavu is a good replacement here.  Another
approach could be to convert gs-fonts to TrueType or OpenType format.

Thoughts?  I don't know much about fonts and would appreciate feedback.

---
 gnu/packages/fontutils.scm | 14 ++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+)

diff --git a/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm b/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm
index e552ece50b..27c84d5814 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@
   #:use-module (gnu packages perl)
   #:use-module (gnu packages pkg-config)
   #:use-module (gnu packages autotools)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages fonts)
   #:use-module (gnu packages gettext)
   #:use-module (gnu packages python)
   #:use-module (gnu packages python-xyz)
@@ -292,6 +293,12 @@ fonts to/from the WOFF2 format.")
 (define-public fontconfig
   (package
    (name "fontconfig")
+
+   ;; This replacement is not security-related, but works around the fact
+   ;; that gs-fonts are not recognized by Pango, causing many applications
+   ;; to fail to find fonts otherwise.
+   (replacement fontconfig/font-dejavu)
+
    (version "2.13.1")
    (source (origin
             (method url-fetch)
@@ -348,6 +355,13 @@ high quality, anti-aliased and subpixel rendered text on a display.")
                        "See COPYING in the distribution."))
    (home-page "https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fontconfig")))
 
+(define fontconfig/font-dejavu
+  (package
+    (inherit fontconfig)
+    (inputs
+     ;; XXX: Reuse the name to avoid having to override the configure flags.
+     `(("gs-fonts" ,font-dejavu)))))
+
 (define-public t1lib
   (package
    (name "t1lib")
-- 
2.26.2

Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Leo Famulari]

On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 04:50:12PM +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
> This is a hack to make (some) fonts working when users don't have fonts
> specified in their system configuration, and (crucially) places where
> the fontconfig cache may be unavailable such as 'guix pack's.
> 
> I'm not sure whether font-dejavu is a good replacement here.  Another
> approach could be to convert gs-fonts to TrueType or OpenType format.
> 
> Thoughts?  I don't know much about fonts and would appreciate feedback.

I think you should push right away, assuming that it helps and doesn't
rebuild the world.

The gs-fonts are important for printing so we might need a real fix
later but for now a quick fix is the right thing.

Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Marius Bakke]

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Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 04:50:12PM +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
>> This is a hack to make (some) fonts working when users don't have fonts
>> specified in their system configuration, and (crucially) places where
>> the fontconfig cache may be unavailable such as 'guix pack's.
>> 
>> I'm not sure whether font-dejavu is a good replacement here.  Another
>> approach could be to convert gs-fonts to TrueType or OpenType format.
>> 
>> Thoughts?  I don't know much about fonts and would appreciate feedback.
>
> I think you should push right away, assuming that it helps and doesn't
> rebuild the world.

Someone on #guix wanted to test it, so I've attached the patch here
again to this message.

Will push later today unless anyone objects.  Though I'm still not
convinced 'font-dejavu' is a good replacement for 'gs-fonts'.

> The gs-fonts are important for printing so we might need a real fix
> later but for now a quick fix is the right thing.

The print infrastructure (CUPS, ghostscript) does not use Pango, so I
think gs-fonts still work there.

Might be difficult to work with when the end user applications don't
recognize them though.

What do you expect from a "real fix"?


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From ba3a99430ce1c0f6f27973e1d82539a67c769b89 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com>
Date: Sun, 17 May 2020 16:23:29 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of
 gs-fonts.

This fixes <https://bugs.gnu.org/41282>, <https://bugs.gnu.org/41241>, and <https://bugs.gnu.org/41344>.
Reported by Pierre Neidhardt, W Knight, Alexandros Theodotou, and others.

* gnu/packages/fontutils.scm (fontconfig)[replacement]: New field.
(fontconfig/font-dejavu): New variable.
---
 gnu/packages/fontutils.scm | 14 ++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+)

diff --git a/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm b/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm
index e552ece50b..27c84d5814 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/fontutils.scm
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@
   #:use-module (gnu packages perl)
   #:use-module (gnu packages pkg-config)
   #:use-module (gnu packages autotools)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages fonts)
   #:use-module (gnu packages gettext)
   #:use-module (gnu packages python)
   #:use-module (gnu packages python-xyz)
@@ -292,6 +293,12 @@ fonts to/from the WOFF2 format.")
 (define-public fontconfig
   (package
    (name "fontconfig")
+
+   ;; This replacement is not security-related, but works around the fact
+   ;; that gs-fonts are not recognized by Pango, causing many applications
+   ;; to fail to find fonts otherwise.
+   (replacement fontconfig/font-dejavu)
+
    (version "2.13.1")
    (source (origin
             (method url-fetch)
@@ -348,6 +355,13 @@ high quality, anti-aliased and subpixel rendered text on a display.")
                        "See COPYING in the distribution."))
    (home-page "https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fontconfig")))
 
+(define fontconfig/font-dejavu
+  (package
+    (inherit fontconfig)
+    (inputs
+     ;; XXX: Reuse the name to avoid having to override the configure flags.
+     `(("gs-fonts" ,font-dejavu)))))
+
 (define-public t1lib
   (package
    (name "t1lib")
-- 
2.26.2


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Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Leo Famulari]

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On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 01:28:13PM +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
> The print infrastructure (CUPS, ghostscript) does not use Pango, so I
> think gs-fonts still work there.
> 
> Might be difficult to work with when the end user applications don't
> recognize them though.
> 
> What do you expect from a "real fix"?

My idea of a "real fix" would be for the postscript fonts (gs-fonts) to
still be visible in applications that used to show them. It's probably
not something for us to do in Guix, however, since the problem seems to
be that Pango no longer supports them.

Thanks for pushing your fix!

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Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Marius Bakke]

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Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 04:50:12PM +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
>> This is a hack to make (some) fonts working when users don't have fonts
>> specified in their system configuration, and (crucially) places where
>> the fontconfig cache may be unavailable such as 'guix pack's.
>> 
>> I'm not sure whether font-dejavu is a good replacement here.  Another
>> approach could be to convert gs-fonts to TrueType or OpenType format.
>> 
>> Thoughts?  I don't know much about fonts and would appreciate feedback.
>
> I think you should push right away, assuming that it helps and doesn't
> rebuild the world.

I pushed the patch as ab9de8cfb0525ef43668712ac898707f97f9a620.

I verified that it fixes the immediate problem with fonts in the Guix
manual (#41282) as well as 'guix pack' (#41344).  It should also provide
a decent fallback for cases where the user did not explicitly install
any fonts such as in #41241.

Hoping for angry reports now about why such a poor replacement font was
chosen.  ;-)

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Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[zimoun]

Hi Marius,

Thank you for the patch.
I have tried it yet... maybe soon today.


On Sun, 17 May 2020 at 16:51, Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> wrote:

> * gnu/packages/fontutils.scm (fontconfig)[replacement]: New field.
> (fontconfig/font-dejavu): New variable.
> ---
> Guix,
>
> This is a hack to make (some) fonts working when users don't have fonts
> specified in their system configuration, and (crucially) places where
> the fontconfig cache may be unavailable such as 'guix pack's.
>
> I'm not sure whether font-dejavu is a good replacement here.  Another
> approach could be to convert gs-fonts to TrueType or OpenType format.

Apparently, there is different fonts on master and core-updates, if yes why?

I mean, on my machine -- Guix on the top of Debian with font-dejavu
installed -- why does commit 4bdf4182fe (core-update merge) not
display correctly and the parent commit c81457a588 too but the other
parent commit 23a59b180b displays nicely?


All the best,
simon

Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Marius Bakke]

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zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> Apparently, there is different fonts on master and core-updates, if yes why?

The only known difference since the core-updates merge is that
applications using Pango (e.g. GTK+) no longer recognizes bitmap fonts.

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/issues/386

> I mean, on my machine -- Guix on the top of Debian with font-dejavu
> installed -- why does commit 4bdf4182fe (core-update merge) not
> display correctly and the parent commit c81457a588 too but the other
> parent commit 23a59b180b displays nicely?

Leo reported problems with fonts on Debian in
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41132>, but said that fonts installed
with Guix still worked.  I don't know what could cause it to fail on
your system.

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Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[zimoun]

On Wed, 20 May 2020 at 15:55, Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> wrote:
> zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> > Apparently, there is different fonts on master and core-updates, if yes why?
>
> The only known difference since the core-updates merge is that
> applications using Pango (e.g. GTK+) no longer recognizes bitmap fonts.
>
>   https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/issues/386

Thank you for the pointer but I think it is another issue.


> > I mean, on my machine -- Guix on the top of Debian with font-dejavu
> > installed -- why does commit 4bdf4182fe (core-update merge) not
> > display correctly and the parent commit c81457a588 too but the other
> > parent commit 23a59b180b displays nicely?
>
> Leo reported problems with fonts on Debian in
> <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41132>, but said that fonts installed
> with Guix still worked.  I don't know what could cause it to fail on
> your system.

Thank for the pointer, it seems the same issue.  But I am not sure
because I am using the font from Guix.

Well, I have font-dejavu-2.37 and fontconfig-2.13.1 installed in
~/.guix-profile from Guix e98689f.


When I run

    guix pull --commit=4bdf4182fe -p /tmp/bad

then

   display  /tmp/bad/share/info/images/bootstrap-graph.png

there is an issue.  Note that 'imagemagick' is installed in
~/.guix-profile using the same commit above.


The commit 4bdf4182fe is the commit of merge.  If I pull from the
(left) parent commit, i.e., the commit c81457a588,

  guix pull --commit=c81457a588 -p /tmp/left

then

  display  /tmp/right/share/info/images/bootstrap-graph.png

displays nicely and the font is correct.  However, if I pull form the
(right) parent commit, i.e., the commit 23a59b180b,

  guix pull --commit=23a59b180b -p /tmp/right

then

  display  /tmp/right/share/info/images/bootstrap-graph.png

displays wrongly.  Well, I have changed nothing, considering the
fonts.  And the only difference is commit from "master" vs from
"core-updates".  And as I explained [1], it always happens when
core-updates is merged.


BTW, let checkout 4bdf4182fe (git worktree add -b) and run ./bootstrap
&& ./configure --localstatedir=/var/ && make -j4 in "guix environment
--pure guix".  Then the image doc/images/bootstrap-graph.png displays
nicely.  Idem for the two other commits.  It is the same when building
using the -C option.

However, if I pull from this fresh Guix using,

    ./pre-env-inst guix pull --branch=merge --url=$PWD -p /tmp/merge

then outside the environment, using the very same imagemagick,

   display  /tmp/merge/share/info/images/bootstrap-graph.png

displays wrongly.  Same for the (right) commit 23a59b180b.  But it is
not the case for the left commit c81457a588.  And as I noted [1] this
happens with all the merges of core-updates.


Something is different between 23a59b180b and c81457a588 in regard to
the font, otherwise the exact same procedure would end to the same
result using the same machine.  The question is: does someone
reproduce the same behaviour on Guix System? on other than Debian
foreign distro?


[1] http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41282

All the best,
simon

Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Marius Bakke]

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zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, 20 May 2020 at 15:55, Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> wrote:
>> zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> > Apparently, there is different fonts on master and core-updates, if yes why?
>>
>> The only known difference since the core-updates merge is that
>> applications using Pango (e.g. GTK+) no longer recognizes bitmap fonts.
>>
>>   https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/issues/386
>
> Thank you for the pointer but I think it is another issue.
>
>
>> > I mean, on my machine -- Guix on the top of Debian with font-dejavu
>> > installed -- why does commit 4bdf4182fe (core-update merge) not
>> > display correctly and the parent commit c81457a588 too but the other
>> > parent commit 23a59b180b displays nicely?
>>
>> Leo reported problems with fonts on Debian in
>> <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41132>, but said that fonts installed
>> with Guix still worked.  I don't know what could cause it to fail on
>> your system.
>
> Thank for the pointer, it seems the same issue.  But I am not sure
> because I am using the font from Guix.
>
> Well, I have font-dejavu-2.37 and fontconfig-2.13.1 installed in
> ~/.guix-profile from Guix e98689f.
>
>
> When I run
>
>     guix pull --commit=4bdf4182fe -p /tmp/bad
>
> then
>
>    display  /tmp/bad/share/info/images/bootstrap-graph.png
>
> there is an issue.  Note that 'imagemagick' is installed in
> ~/.guix-profile using the same commit above.
>
>
> The commit 4bdf4182fe is the commit of merge.  If I pull from the
> (left) parent commit, i.e., the commit c81457a588,
>
>   guix pull --commit=c81457a588 -p /tmp/left
>
> then
>
>   display  /tmp/right/share/info/images/bootstrap-graph.png
>
> displays nicely and the font is correct.  However, if I pull form the
> (right) parent commit, i.e., the commit 23a59b180b,
>
>   guix pull --commit=23a59b180b -p /tmp/right
>
> then
>
>   display  /tmp/right/share/info/images/bootstrap-graph.png
>
> displays wrongly.  Well, I have changed nothing, considering the
> fonts.  And the only difference is commit from "master" vs from
> "core-updates".  And as I explained [1], it always happens when
> core-updates is merged.

Missing fonts in the manual is another known issue and was not clear
from your initial message: <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41418>.

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Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[zimoun]

On Wed, 20 May 2020 at 23:41, Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> wrote:

> Missing fonts in the manual is another known issue and was not clear
> from your initial message: <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41418>.

My initial message was on <http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41282> and
not on #41418; I have never commented on.
I do not understand why you are saying "missing font in the manual"
because I have the fonts installed; especially font-dejavu (and
gs-fonts too).
Well, I do not understand neither how c81457a588 can work nicely and
not 23a59b180b with the exact same setup, if nothing has changed in
regard to font between these 2 parent commits of the last merge.

Last, I confirm that the commit
ab9de8cfb0525ef43668712ac898707f97f9a620 fixes the issue. Thank you.

Best regards,
simon

Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontconfig: Add replacement with font-dejavu instead of gs-fonts.

[Marius Bakke]

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zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, 20 May 2020 at 23:41, Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Missing fonts in the manual is another known issue and was not clear
>> from your initial message: <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41418>.
>
> My initial message was on <http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41282> and
> not on #41418; I have never commented on.

Oh, your most recent messages appeared below the fontconfig patch thread
on guix-devel in my MUA, so I did not make the mental link to #41282.

> I do not understand why you are saying "missing font in the manual"
> because I have the fonts installed; especially font-dejavu (and
> gs-fonts too).

The missing fonts were in images (PNG files) embedded in the manual, so
it does not matter what you have installed: they are not rendered when
you open the .png, unlike e.g. SVG or a rich text document.

> Well, I do not understand neither how c81457a588 can work nicely and
> not 23a59b180b with the exact same setup, if nothing has changed in
> regard to font between these 2 parent commits of the last merge.

The difference is that Pango (and its consumers) did not recognize the
built-in fallback font in fontconfig which was previously 'gs-fonts',
now changed to 'font-dejavu'.

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