Arch Linux

dale77

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From: Down under

Registered: 2007-02-10

Posts: 102

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New KDE system fonts unrecognized

Hello,

In KDE 3.5.6 Control Center, Font Installer, if I use administrator mode to add "system-wide" fonts, the fonts are added but never recognised. I can add personal fonts (in ~/.fonts) using control center no problem, and they are picked up after I relogin.

I wonder whether the problem is that KDE installs these fonts in /usr/local/share/fonts?? The ttf files for the fonts have been copied...

How do I get KDE to recognise these fonts "system-wide"?

Thanks

Dale

IceRAM

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From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2004-03-04

Posts: 772

Website

Re: New KDE system fonts unrecognized

Just an opinion here: I have to admit that I have never installed fonts using KDE. I've always thought that installing a font using distro packages is the best way.

Also, as a side note, in ArchLinux /usr/local is not used by packages. If KDE uses it for some reason, there is probably a bug in KDE.

Last edited by IceRAM (2007-02-12 14:26:28)

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dale77

Member

From: Down under

Registered: 2007-02-10

Posts: 102

Website

Re: New KDE system fonts unrecognized

I added a bug.

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/6409

dale77

Member

From: Down under

Registered: 2007-02-10

Posts: 102

Website

Re: New KDE system fonts unrecognized

In my case I need to add a single TTF for Greek language characters. No package available as far as I know.

Dale

dale77

Member

From: Down under

Registered: 2007-02-10

Posts: 102

Website

Re: New KDE system fonts unrecognized

My bug just got closed as "not a bug" so I'm still curious for a solution if anyone knows. I have a workaround in loading the font for my user only, but I don't like stuff not working...

The last comment in my bug was:

if you install fonts to a directory which xorg doesn't know about they cannot be found

Strangely enough xorg.conf contains the line:

    FontPath     "/usr/local/share/fonts"

And /etc/fonts/fonts.conf includes the directory /etc/fonts/conf.d which includes the file 00kde which contains the line:

<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
 <dir>/usr/local/share/fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>

Any thoughts as to how to get this system-wide fonts thing working for kde?

Thanks

Dale

funkyou

Member

From: Berlin, DE

Registered: 2006-03-19

Posts: 848

Website

Re: New KDE system fonts unrecognized

I have investigated a bit and found a solution, but its not very clean and also needs a patch for KDEbase...

At first, apply this patch to kdebase:

diff -u --recursive --new-file kdebase-3.5.6.orig/kcontrol/kfontinst/kio/KioFonts.cpp kdebase-3.5.6/kcontrol/kfontinst/kio/KioFonts.cpp
--- kdebase-3.5.6.orig/kcontrol/kfontinst/kio/KioFonts.cpp    2006-05-22 20:12:36.000000000 +0200
+++ kdebase-3.5.6/kcontrol/kfontinst/kio/KioFonts.cpp    2007-02-28 12:38:18.000000000 +0100
@@ -767,8 +767,8 @@
         itsFolders[FOLDER_USER].location=dir;
     }
 
-    QString sysDefault("/usr/local/share/fonts/"),
-            sysDir(getFontFolder(sysDefault, "/usr/local/share/", dirs));
+    QString sysDefault("/usr/share/fonts/"),
+            sysDir(getFontFolder(sysDefault, "/usr/share/", dirs));
 
     if(sysDir.isEmpty())
     {

It changes the dir for font installation to /usr/share/fonts...

To make it work, you also have to issue a "sudo mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts" ... I did it after installing a font with the patched font installer. Without issuing mkfontdir after installing a font, the font was not visible in my apps...

You must also add FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts" to your xrog.conf

Well, it seems that the KDE font installer is badly broken (??) because there is no way to make it recognize the subfolders in /usr/share/fonts... The patch could be modified to point to /usr/share/fonts/TTF for example, but then you can only install TTF fonts with it...

I think its always better to install prepackaged fonts with pacman or just install them to your ~/.fonts with kfontinst...

Well, i simply have no experience with installing fonts or their defaults or whatnot, so dont blame me for that "solution", i know its cheap

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want a modular and tweaked KDE for arch? try kdemod

dale77

Member

From: Down under

Registered: 2007-02-10

Posts: 102

Website

Re: New KDE system fonts unrecognized

Thanks for looking at this.

It does seem that kde is trying to set things up "properly" (albeit for system wide fonts under /usr/local/share/fonts)

The file /etc/fonts/conf.d/00kde seems to be created by KDE itself specifically for fontconfig 2.3+ (pacman -Qo 00kde returns no-owner).

Patching KDE to move things to /usr/share/fonts suggests that this possibly a kde bug or maybe - a .configure option on kde base?

Dale

funkyou

Member

From: Berlin, DE

Registered: 2006-03-19

Posts: 848

Website

Re: New KDE system fonts unrecognized

Its no ./configure option on KDEbase... I think the font installer is either broken or simply does not support our great distro...
So maybe its time to fill in a bug report or feature request on bugs.kde.org...

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want a modular and tweaked KDE for arch? try kdemod