Arch Linux

roj

Member

Registered: 2022-03-19

Posts: 7

[SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

I’ve recently installed Arch following the Wiki, along with `gnome` and `gnome-extra`.

I have some problems in how the texts in languages using an Arabic-based writing system is displayed in various programs, including Firefox and Chrome.

I’ve tried installing the recommended fonts in the Wiki related to those languages, and deleting `~/.cache` in case of any possible font caches, but it still didn’t get resolved.

I didn’t want to use any add-ons or extensions in the browsers, because I would like to know if there is a more native way to fix this.

Expected way of displaying texts described above (works on most programs and different parts of GNOME):

https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/YKSTX9OETNPS.png

The unexpected way (in Firefox, Chrome and some other programs):

https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/7VoXuoEts0C1.png

Last edited by roj (2022-03-23 13:58:46)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 52,630

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Please replace the oversized images w/ thumbnails.
Do you concern the unaliased ("not smooth") font or are there more subtle issues (misresolved ligatures, ltr inside the rtl…)?
If it's the font, use the web inspector to check which font the browser resolves and check that:

FC_DEBUG=4 pango-view --font="sans" -t "ؠ" | grep family:

Also

fc-list ':charset=0620'
fc-match -s ':charset=0620'

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

roj

Member

Registered: 2022-03-19

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Please replace the oversized images w/ thumbnails.

Sorry, I don’t know what you mean by this.

Do you concern the unaliased ("not smooth") font or are there more subtle issues (misresolved ligatures, ltr inside the rtl…)?

The font is smooth, but it is just very unreadable, all letters are separated from each other.

Last edited by roj (2022-03-21 07:18:24)

WorMzy

Forum Moderator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 11,960

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

> Please replace the oversized images w/ thumbnails.

Sorry, I don’t know what you mean by this.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Genera … s_and_code

Edit the post, and change the "img" tags to "url" tags. Optionally add a thumbnail image (see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=263462) to your post.

---

Sakura:-
Mobo: MSI MAG X570S TORPEDO MAX // Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @4.9GHz // GFX: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT // RAM: 32GB (4x 8GB) Corsair DDR4 (@ 3000MHz) // Storage: 1x 3TB HDD, 6x 1TB SSD, 2x 120GB SSD, 1x 275GB M2 SSD

Making lemonade from lemons since 2015.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 52,630

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

The images in your post are too big. There's a 250x250 px limit for permissible image posts.
Also please use quote tags, https://bbs.archlinux.org/help.php#bbcode

Still please investigate the resolved fonts because scripts/ligatures will likely not work w/ bitmap fonts

Does http://ligga.herokuapp.com/ work for you?

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

roj

Member

Registered: 2022-03-19

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Does http://ligga.herokuapp.com/ work for you?

No, it doesn’t:

https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/uvefdKxp3RTP.png?o=1

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 52,630

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Does this look ok to you?
https://0x0.st/oNfO.png

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

roj

Member

Registered: 2022-03-19

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Yes, exactly! I want it to be like this.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 52,630

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

FC_DEBUG=4 pango-view --font="sans-serif" -t "ل" | grep family:
fc-match -s ':charset=0644'
fc-list ':charset=0644'

Edit: it's gonna be the font, hence please post the output of the above to show what sans-serif resolves for in the relevant utf8 block

Last edited by seth (2022-03-22 13:49:08)

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

roj

Member

Registered: 2022-03-19

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Here is it: https://pastebin.com/raw/R7xHG2WV

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 52,630

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

It resolves FreeMono.otf - a monospace font from the gnu-free-fonts package - despite a whole bunch of non fixed-width fonts (amongs them FreeSans …) provide the glyph as well and the default sans-serif is Noto
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Font_c … les#Arabic to prefer the Noto versions of the font.

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

roj

Member

Registered: 2022-03-19

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Thank you very much, seth!

I fixed my problem by creating /etc/fonts/local.d and setting its content to the second configuration in the Arabic section of the wiki page you sent.

Now all applications display the texts in languages using an Arabic-based script properly and in a readable way!

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 52,630

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

roj

Member

Registered: 2022-03-19

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Arabic-based text getting displayed unexpectedly

My bad, done!