Icecat displays mahjong characters instead of alphabet

Icecat displays mahjong characters instead of alphabet

[Todor Kondić]

I know similar questions have been asked here and the problem came and went time and again for me personally, but here I am, a new Guix/PopOs installation and icecat throwing fits.

The icecat GUI (including the input text boxes), as well as some websites display blocks instead of characters. Some other websites do show fonts correctly.

Possibly relevant errors:
...
Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.732: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.734: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.815: Failed to load module "appmenu-gtk-module"

(/gnu/store/73j8fcmalx3asc5gy0rd2rcij0wqgn9v-icecat-68.4.1-guix0-preview1/lib/icecat/.icecat-real:4621): Pango-WARNING **: 10:48:16.816: failed to create cairo scaled font, expect ugly output. the offending font is 'Nimbus Sans L 9.9990234375'
...

The abovementioned Nimbus Sans does show up in my fc-list:
fc-list|grep "Nimbus Sans"
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019003l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019044l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Condensed
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019023l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Italic
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019063l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Condensed Italic
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019004l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019043l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Condensed
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019024l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Italic
/gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019064l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Condensed Italic




I have installed font-dejavu and font-liberation (as well as some other fonts) and I also installed fontconfig from guix. That fc-cache has been run in '-f' and '-r' forms. I have also tried with the system's /usr/bin/fc-cache. Both XDG_DATA_DIRS and XDG_CONFIG_DIRS have been set.

I am running a multiprofile setup, similar to the one described in the cookbook (https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html#Advanced-package-management)

icecat version: GNU IceCat 68.4.1esr
guix version: 09bad3cd42ca51974f3697f04ce841bf2fe6786c

Re: Icecat displays mahjong characters instead of alphabet

[Todor Kondić]

On Wednesday, 15 January 2020 11:53, Todor Kondić <tk.code@protonmail.com> wrote:

> I know similar questions have been asked here and the problem came and went time and again for me personally, but here I am, a new Guix/PopOs installation and icecat throwing fits.
>
> The icecat GUI (including the input text boxes), as well as some websites display blocks instead of characters. Some other websites do show fonts correctly.
>
> Possibly relevant errors:
> ...
> Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.732: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
> Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.734: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
> Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.815: Failed to load module "appmenu-gtk-module"
>
> (/gnu/store/73j8fcmalx3asc5gy0rd2rcij0wqgn9v-icecat-68.4.1-guix0-preview1/lib/icecat/.icecat-real:4621): Pango-WARNING **: 10:48:16.816: failed to create cairo scaled font, expect ugly output. the offending font is 'Nimbus Sans L 9.9990234375'
> ...
>
> The abovementioned Nimbus Sans does show up in my fc-list:
> fc-list|grep "Nimbus Sans"
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019003l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019044l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Condensed
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019023l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Italic
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019063l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Condensed Italic
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019004l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019043l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Condensed
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019024l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Italic
> /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019064l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Condensed Italic
>
> I have installed font-dejavu and font-liberation (as well as some other fonts) and I also installed fontconfig from guix. That fc-cache has been run in '-f' and '-r' forms. I have also tried with the system's /usr/bin/fc-cache. Both XDG_DATA_DIRS and XDG_CONFIG_DIRS have been set.
>
> I am running a multiprofile setup, similar to the one described in the cookbook (https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html#Advanced-package-management)
>
> icecat version: GNU IceCat 68.4.1esr
> guix version: 09bad3cd42ca51974f3697f04ce841bf2fe6786c

... now is see that the mentioned "Nimbus Sans" is part of the ghostscript collection of fonts. Is this GUI compatible?

Re: Icecat displays mahjong characters instead of alphabet

[Todor Kondić]

On Wednesday, January 15, 2020 10:55 AM, Todor Kondić <tk.code@protonmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 15 January 2020 11:53, Todor Kondić tk.code@protonmail.com wrote:
>
> > I know similar questions have been asked here and the problem came and went time and again for me personally, but here I am, a new Guix/PopOs installation and icecat throwing fits.
> > The icecat GUI (including the input text boxes), as well as some websites display blocks instead of characters. Some other websites do show fonts correctly.
> > Possibly relevant errors:
> > ...
> > Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.732: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
> > Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.734: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
> > Gtk-Message: 10:48:16.815: Failed to load module "appmenu-gtk-module"
> > (/gnu/store/73j8fcmalx3asc5gy0rd2rcij0wqgn9v-icecat-68.4.1-guix0-preview1/lib/icecat/.icecat-real:4621): Pango-WARNING **: 10:48:16.816: failed to create cairo scaled font, expect ugly output. the offending font is 'Nimbus Sans L 9.9990234375'
> > ...
> > The abovementioned Nimbus Sans does show up in my fc-list:
> > fc-list|grep "Nimbus Sans"
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019003l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019044l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Condensed
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019023l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Italic
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019063l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Condensed Italic
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019004l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019043l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Regular Condensed
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019024l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Italic
> > /gnu/store/8ppj83wc1mmrdydh9cy7vqvg0bym8l0q-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript/n019064l.pfb: Nimbus Sans L:style=Bold Condensed Italic
> > I have installed font-dejavu and font-liberation (as well as some other fonts) and I also installed fontconfig from guix. That fc-cache has been run in '-f' and '-r' forms. I have also tried with the system's /usr/bin/fc-cache. Both XDG_DATA_DIRS and XDG_CONFIG_DIRS have been set.
> > I am running a multiprofile setup, similar to the one described in the cookbook (https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html#Advanced-package-management)
> > icecat version: GNU IceCat 68.4.1esr
> > guix version: 09bad3cd42ca51974f3697f04ce841bf2fe6786c
>
> ... now is see that the mentioned "Nimbus Sans" is part of the ghostscript collection of fonts. Is this GUI compatible?


Unsurprisingly, the problem was the non-standard setup. The fonts and the fontconfig packages were all in a separate sub-profile. After I moved them into the standard .guix-profile profile (followed by fc-cache -r) icecat started displaying characters correctly.

A word of caution about situations such as this one could be added to the "Advanced Package Management" section of the "Guix Cookbook" ... though in the case of the CentOS/Guix blog (https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/running-a-guix-xfce-desktop-on-centos-7) -- also a multi-profile setup -- things seemed to work correctly.

But, my setup is different in at least two aspects: 1) fontconfig and the fonts were in a profile different from icecat, 2) I am still running the host graphical environment. Also, I am not sure, but I think the author of the mentioned blog used the system's fc-cache.