Fontconfig confusion.

markhadman · 2012-09-06 14:19:38

Hi,

Is anybody willing to expand on the very terse and ambiguous instructions for manual intervention when upgrading fontconfig? I will quote the news item in full:

Fontconfig 2.10.1 update overwrites symlinks created by the former package version. These symlinks need to be removed before any further update:
rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-vera.conf
[... snip ...]
rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/80-delicious.conf
rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/90-synthetic.conf
pacman -Syu
Main systemwide configuration should be done by symlinks (especially for autohinting, sub-pixel and lcdfilter):
cd /etc/fonts/conf.d
ln -s ../conf.avail/XX-foo.conf

So, does this mean:
(1) I have to upgrade fontconfig, then remove the .conf files before I am able to do another upgrade?
(2) I should remove the .conf files before doing a full upgrade, which will naturally include fontconfig, then I must make new symlinks?
(3) Some other combination of the above?

Also, would having (eg) freetype-infinality installed make any difference?

Here's hoping for an explanation that sits better with the way that my brain works. I'm afraid to upgrade any of my systems at the moment (the recent /lib business was a breeze by comparison because it was explained step by step, very verbosely).

AndyRTR · 2012-09-06 14:32:10

"These symlinks need to be removed before any further update"

What's unclear about that? First remove those files and then -Syu with new fontconfig included.

markhadman · 2012-09-06 14:36:46

If we're talking about today's upgrade that includes fontconfig, why the use of the word 'further', as if talking about a future upgrade that comes afterwards? Hence my confusion, and my question still stands.

cmm7825 · 2012-09-06 14:40:09

Yea Im pretty confused too. I have infinality installed. Does this mean after I upgrade I have to manually remake any symlinks that infinality made?

AndyRTR · 2012-09-06 14:44:22

Now it should be clear. But other people will still claim if later update come to that one if they should run it before or after...

skanky · 2012-09-06 14:49:51

My only confusion is the last bit, "Main systemwide...." etc.

Is this for future reference or info, or am I going to need to add more symlinks after the update?

AndyRTR · 2012-09-06 14:55:47

That's what the install msg also says as well as our wiki. But we don't annoy you on any update with such messages to not flood your pacman.log.

You can to settings for auto-/bytecodehinting, sub-pixel rendering and lcd setting with symlinks to ../conf.avail/ or in /etc/fonts/local.conf or in ~/.fonts.conf. Nothing has changed here.

hume's doona · 2012-09-06 14:57:30

lol, i read it, then removed symlinks, Syu'ed, and tada, it hasn't hit my mirror yet

will try again soon

skanky · 2012-09-06 15:00:40

AndyRTR wrote:

That's what the install msg also says as well as our wiki. But we don't annoy you on any update with such messages to not flood your pacman.log.
You can to settings for auto-/bytecodehinting, sub-pixel rendering and lcd setting with symlinks to ../conf.avail/ or in /etc/fonts/local.conf or in ~/.fonts.conf. Nothing has changed here.

Been so long ago I've no idea what the install msgs were.

As for the wiki, I saw it said effectively the same thing, I just wasn't sure if I was missing something and there were some post-install changes that needed doing. Anyway, it makes sense now and I've upgraded with no apparent issues. Thank you.

skanky · 2012-09-06 15:02:53

hume's doona wrote:

lol, i read it, then removed symlinks, Syu'ed, and tada, it hasn't hit my mirror yet
<headdesk>
will try again soon

I always run the update command, and then cancel (select "n" for the update) if the change in question is there. Just to avoid such situations.

bohoomil · 2012-09-06 15:28:31

cmm7825 wrote:

Yea Im pretty confused too. I have infinality installed. Does this mean after I upgrade I have to manually remake any symlinks that infinality made?

Infinality will have to be re-worked to comply with new fontconfig, hmmm, standards. It's working fine, but the syntax of the fontconfig rules has been altered a bit (the author of the patchset is aware of this and working on a solution) and when you run an X application in the console, it will spit warnings, like this:

Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/infinality/conf.d/65-override.conf", line 47: Having multiple values in <test> isn't supported and may not works as expected

For the time being, just leave everything as it is (if you had any custom changes applied to your /etc/fonts/conf.d, you'll have to restore them to the required state) and you shouldn't experience much inconvenience (despite the one mentioned earlier).

gnumdk · 2012-09-06 16:47:27

Here, autohint is broken

ppsalama · 2012-09-06 16:52:40

sorry for my ignorance:
what is or what is the meaning of XX-foo.conf ?
thanks

bohoomil · 2012-09-06 17:07:50

ppsalama wrote:

sorry for my ignorance:
what is or what is the meaning of XX-foo.conf ?
thanks

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=foo

oboedad55 · 2012-09-06 17:15:16

cmm7825 wrote:

Yea Im pretty confused too. I have infinality installed. Does this mean after I upgrade I have to manually remake any symlinks that infinality made?

I just rebuilt Infinality and all is well now.

Kebertx · 2012-09-06 17:17:02

XX-foo.conf : He meant to recreate relevant symlinks to the files in /etc/fonts/conf.avail in /etc/fonts/conf.d which are all of the format ##-name.conf
If there is any specific configuration you want or need to do, that is. I just updated this morning, and my laptop has yet to explode, so it may be the case that you don't have to do anything at all.

Lekensteyn · 2012-09-06 17:17:03

Okay after a bit looking around, I can tell you what happened. Previously, the links mentioned in the message were created by a post_install function. In the new package, these links are not created by a post_install function but provided by the .tar.xz file itself. I wonder why the file "20-fix-globaladvance.conf" is not considered though. It was created in the old fontconfig package, but not the new one? (Bug?)

Last edited by Lekensteyn (2012-09-06 17:17:37)

ppsalama · 2012-09-06 17:28:58

bohoomil wrote:

ppsalama wrote:
sorry for my ignorance:
what is or what is the meaning of XX-foo.conf ?
thanks
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=foo

Thank you very much. "No te acostarás sin saber una cosa más": spanish proverb

Kebertx wrote:

XX-foo.conf : He meant to recreate relevant symlinks to the files in /etc/fonts/conf.avail in /etc/fonts/conf.d which are all of the format ##-name.conf
If there is any specific configuration you want or need to do, that is. I just updated this morning, and my laptop has yet to explode, so it may be the case that you don't have to do anything at all.

Thanks
then...
first...
rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/XX-foo.conf
second
pacman -Sy fontconfig
third (maybe optional?) ----- EDIT: if I have 33 xxx.conf files inside /conf.avail/ Do I need to do this 33 times?:
cd /etc/fonts/conf.d
ln -s ../conf.avail/XX-foo.conf

Last edited by ppsalama (2012-09-06 17:39:58)

AndyRTR · 2012-09-06 17:43:07

Lekensteyn wrote:

Okay after a bit looking around, I can tell you what happened. Previously, the links mentioned in the message were created by a post_install function. In the new package, these links are not created by a post_install function but provided by the .tar.xz file itself. I wonder why the file "20-fix-globaladvance.conf" is not considered though. It was created in the old fontconfig package, but not the new one? (Bug?)

20-fix-globaladvance.conf is a dead link that did not conflict. You can safely remove it.

Ypnose · 2012-09-06 18:20:25

AndyRTR wrote:

20-fix-globaladvance.conf is a dead link that did not conflict. You can safely remove it.

Hi,
I guess we can do the same with 70-no-bitmaps.conf, or am I wrong?
EDIT: Crap, the link was created by me. Nevermind.

Last edited by Ypnose (2012-09-06 18:21:06)

asymmetros · 2012-09-06 18:55:05

I deleted every *.conf symlink from /etc/fonts/conf.d (not actually in purpose) and then, i created a symlink there for each .conf file in /etc/fonts/conf.avail
Till now, everything seems fine.

skanky · 2012-09-06 19:31:58

asymmetros wrote:

I deleted every *.conf symlink from /etc/fonts/conf.d (not actually in purpose) and then, i created a symlink there for each .conf file in /etc/fonts/conf.avail
Till now, everything seems fine.

You don't want to do it for all in conf.avail, some conflict - see the fonts entry in the wiki as linked from the news item. You may not want to link any other than the ones from the package, unless you want to set anything specific e.g. subpixel rendering, etc.

Last edited by skanky (2012-09-06 19:32:17)

Odaer · 2012-09-06 19:34:08

ppsalama wrote:

third (maybe optional?) ----- EDIT: if I have 33 xxx.conf files inside /conf.avail/ Do I need to do this 33 times?:

Try with a for loop. Something like

su -c 'for file in $(ls ../conf.avail/| grep conf); do ln -s ../conf.avail/$file; done'

or maybe it exist a better solution?

Last edited by Odaer (2012-09-06 19:38:32)

irrlicht · 2012-09-06 19:48:47

Hm, update itself was not a problem. But after what i created the symlinks as follows:

20-unhint-small-vera.conf     49-sansserif.conf      69-unifont.conf
29-replace-bitmap-fonts.conf  50-user.conf           70-no-bitmaps.conf
30-metric-aliases.conf        51-local.conf          80-delicious.conf
30-urw-aliases.conf           60-latin.conf          90-synthetic.conf
40-nonlatin.conf              65-fonts-persian.conf  README
45-latin.conf                 65-nonlatin.conf

NOw my font looks ugly and blurry. If i start emacs, fontconfig complains about " Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 9: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated." And the fonts in emacs are messed up.

Need adivice which configs i need to add/delete from /etc/fonts/conf.d ?

AndyRTR · 2012-09-06 19:55:08

Why would you want to link several different configs for one setting that conflict/overwrite each other? There's 5 options for subpixel rendering, 2 for hinting and 3 for lcdfilter.

All links from 20-xxx.conf and above are shipped (=enabled) in the package for good reason. The admin should choose the 10-, 11-xxx.conf setting. That can be done by additional linking or in custom systemwide or per user xml config files. See man fonts-conf or our wiki page. With modern TFT screens you probably want to enable (auto-/bytecode)hinting, subpixel-rendering(rgb) and lcd(default). That should give you good fonts in common desktops.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-09-06 14:19:38

Fontconfig confusion.

#2 2012-09-06 14:32:10

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#3 2012-09-06 14:36:46

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#4 2012-09-06 14:40:09

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#5 2012-09-06 14:44:22

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#6 2012-09-06 14:49:51

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#7 2012-09-06 14:55:47

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#8 2012-09-06 14:57:30

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#9 2012-09-06 15:00:40

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#10 2012-09-06 15:02:53

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#11 2012-09-06 15:28:31

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#12 2012-09-06 16:47:27

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#13 2012-09-06 16:52:40

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#14 2012-09-06 17:07:50

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#15 2012-09-06 17:15:16

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#16 2012-09-06 17:17:02

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#17 2012-09-06 17:17:03

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#18 2012-09-06 17:28:58

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#19 2012-09-06 17:43:07

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#20 2012-09-06 18:20:25

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#21 2012-09-06 18:55:05

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#22 2012-09-06 19:31:58

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#23 2012-09-06 19:34:08

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#24 2012-09-06 19:48:47

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

#25 2012-09-06 19:55:08

Re: Fontconfig confusion.

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