[solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

Franek · 2014-02-25 22:34:42

For some reason (that I am unable to figure out for myself), the "monospace" font on my system is not displayed as such, but replaced by some other font, presumably* by the last one installed to the system. See this screenshot of uzbl-browser as an example; leafpad's font-selection dialog would be another.

* A while back (don't remember when) "monospace" started being displayed as some pleasant sans-serif font, which I did not investigate. When I installed some blackletter fonts (ttf-unifraktur) recently, it started being displayed as one of them, which is more of a nuisance, see screenshot.)

What could be going on here? What is the "monospace" font anyway?

Last edited by Franek (2014-02-27 20:54:20)

thisoldman · 2014-02-26 01:14:39

"Monospace" is an alias for another font. To see what font will be used when an application calls for the "Monospace" font, try

$ fc-match monospace

The font that is substituted for Monospace is selected by the fontconfig rules you set. See the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_Configuration. I recall that sometimes DE (Gnome?) settings have overriden a user's fontconfig settings. I don't use a DE so I don't know if this is still true.

Your font configuration is not quite right. The files to check would most likely be located in '~/.config/fontconfig/' and '/etc/fonts/conf.d/'
Note that the files listed in '/etc/fonts/conf.d/' should be symlinks to files in '/etc/fonts/conf.avail'.

I'll suggest installing or reinstalling ttf-dejavu, the DejaVu font family. There's a slim but not non-existent chance that this might give you a reasonable monospace font immediately. If that doesn't work, and the wiki is not enough, please post the list of files in '/etc/fonts/.conf.d' and '~/.config/fontconfig'.

Franek · 2014-02-26 21:57:35

First: I probably should have mentioned that I am using the infinality-bundle and infinality-bundle-fonts repositories.

(Re-)Installing ttf-dejavu instantly made uzbl pretty again. But actually, I did not have ttf-dejavu installed in the first place, but t1-dejavu-ib from the infinality-bundle-fonts repository. When I change back to t1-dejavu-ib, Monospace is displayed as a blackletter font again.

Here is the output of "fc-match monospace" with ttf-dejavu installed:

$ fc-match monospace
DejaVuSansMono.ttf: "DejaVu Sans Mono" "Book"

And here it is with t1-dejavu-ib:

$ fc-match monospace
sawarabi-gothic-medium.ttf: "Sawarabi Gothic" "Medium"

About this font (which is certainly not the blackletter font I am seeing in uzbl):

$ pacman -Qs sawarabi
local/ttf-sawarabi-ib 0.0045-2 (infinality-bundle-fonts)
    Sawarabi font family for Japanese script.

I have nothing in ~/.config/fontconfig, whereas /etc/fonts/conf.d/ is filled with several symlinks, most of which belong to the fontconfig-infinality-ultimate package. They all look alright to me, or rather: I trust that the infinality-bundle(-fonts) packages are doing the right thing. (Should I ask bohoomil about this?) Here is a list:

$ pacman -Qo /etc/fonts/conf.d/*
/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-base-rendering.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/30-metric-aliases.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/31-fix-cantarell.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/35-repl-custom.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/40-non-latin.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/42-luxi-mono.conf is owned by font-bh-ttf 1.0.3-1
/etc/fonts/conf.d/45-latin.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/49-sansserif.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/51-local.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/65-ttf-noto-sans-ui.conf is owned by ttf-noto-sans-multilang-ib 1.04-2
/etc/fonts/conf.d/65-ttf-noto-sans.conf is owned by ttf-noto-sans-multilang-ib 1.04-2
/etc/fonts/conf.d/65-ttf-noto-serif.conf is owned by ttf-noto-serif-multilang-ib 1.04-2
/etc/fonts/conf.d/68-override.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/82-no-embedded-bitmaps.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/82-no-force-autohint.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/82-no-ttf-as-bitmap.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/83-yes-bitmaps.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/83-yes-postscript.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/88-forced-synthetic.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-dejavu-t1.conf is owned by t1-dejavu-ib 2.34-4
/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-non-tt-fonts.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-opensans-t1.conf is owned by t1-opensans-ib 1.2-7
/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-tt-fonts.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/92-selective-rendering.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/93-final-rendering.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/94-no-synthetic.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/95-reject.conf is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15
/etc/fonts/conf.d/99pdftoopvp.conf is owned by cups-filters 1.0.46-1
/etc/fonts/conf.d/README is owned by fontconfig-infinality-ultimate 2.11.0-15

bohoomil · 2014-02-27 05:25:08

1. You do not need this package: font-bh-ttf (if you want to use Luxi fonts, t1-bh-ib should be installed instead).
2. Did you install the entire collection (libraries & fonts) following the Wiki? It seems you did not (see #1), so please reinstall the bundle as described in the Wiki. Before you reinstall fontconfig-iu, move your current /etc/fonts to /etc/fonts.bkp.

Franek · 2014-02-27 19:08:50

bohoomil, thanks for jumping in!

I did as you said (although I don't know why I wouldn't follow the wiki, it appears that for some reason I did not), so now infinality-bundle, infinality-bundle-multilib and ibfonts-meta-base are installed according the the wiki manual. However, the display error of the monospace font alias persists, and "fc-match monospace" still reports Sawarabi Gothic.

I tried removing the blackletter font package (ttf-unifraktur). Now "monospace" is not displayed as blackletter any more, of course; but instead as some serif font which I can not identify on first sight. "fc-match monospace" still reports Sawarabi.

Next I tried removing the Sawarabi font (ttf-sawarabi-ib). Now fc-match says:

$ fc-match monospace
Vollkorn-Medium.ttf: "Vollkorn" "Medium"

… while uzbl is again displaying the blackletter font, which I had reinstalled meanwhile. Weird.

bohoomil · 2014-02-27 20:29:08

If you are using the ib-fonts collection, please re-run 'fc-presets set' and select '3' when prompted to enter the number. There seems to be something wrong with the preset files, so resetting them may do the trick.

Franek · 2014-02-27 21:07:46

That worked, great! (Thread marked as "solved".)

(EDIT, for future readers: From this point on, this thread is about an apparantly entirely different issue.)

However, my terminal emulator (lxterminal) font was changed from Consolas to Liberation Mono by this (which may be expected), and I cannot set it back to Consolas—the setting always switches right back to Liberation Mono. Is it lxterminal's fault for being to obedient to the fontconfig presets? I like the free font collection generally, just in the terminal I prefer to use Consolas.

Sorry if I am failing to understand something basic about fontconfig.

Last edited by Franek (2014-02-28 08:55:40)

bohoomil · 2014-02-27 21:26:57

That's because Consolas is substituted with Liberation Mono in the free collection. If you want to use Consolas in your terminal only, just set it in lxterminal preferences. (This should always be the recommended method: this is what preferences are for after all.) If you want to use Consolas globally and keep other replacements active (e.g. Times New Roman => Heuristica, Arial => Liberation Sans, etc.) create a valid entry in /etc/fonts/conf.d/35-repl-custom.conf:

  <match target="font">
    <test name="family">
      <string>Liberation Mono</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign">
      <string>Consolas</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match target="pattern">
    <test name="family">
      <string>Liberation Mono</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="strong" >
      <string>Consolas</string>
    </edit>
  </match>

In this file, you can provide any customization you wish, while the ones in /etc/fonts/conf.d/37-repl-global-free.conf will be kept untouched.

Franek · 2014-02-27 21:40:41

bohoomil wrote:

If you want to use Consolas in your terminal only, just set it in lxterminal preferences. (This should always be the recommended method: this is what preferences are for after all.)

I know, but the strange thing is: lxterminal now always switches right back to Liberation Mono from Consolas, no matter if I set it in the graphical dialog or directly in the configuration file! I have a feeling that it shouldn't do that.

bohoomil · 2014-02-27 21:46:07

Indeed, it should not. It does not happen to me, though: I have just checked out lxterminal and changed the default font randomly. Did not you remove Consolas by chance? Does 'fc-list | grep -i consolas' return the right output?

Franek · 2014-02-27 21:58:53

$ fc-list | grep -i consolas
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/consolaz.ttf: Consolas:style=Bold Italic
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/consolai.ttf: Consolas:style=Italic
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/consola.ttf: Consolas:style=Regular
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/consolab.ttf: Consolas:style=Bold

Also, I can change the font in lxterminal from Liberation Mono to e. g. Inconsolata, apparently just not to Consolas.

bohoomil · 2014-02-27 22:04:30

OK, please check out one more step. Open /etc/fonts/conf.d/30-metric-aliases-free.conf and comment the following entries:

  <alias binding="same">
    <family>Liberation Mono</family>
    <default>
      <family>Consolas</family>
    </default>
  </alias>

  <alias binding="same">
    <family>Cousine</family>
    <default>
      <family>Consolas</family>
    </default>
  </alias>

<alias binding="same">
    <family>Liberation Mono</family>
    <default>
      <family>Consolas</family>
    </default>
  </alias>

  <alias binding="same">
    <family>Cousine</family>
    <default>
      <family>Consolas</family>
    </default>
  </alias>

These are the new compatibility bits for ibfonts users. You may need a customized files instead.

Last edited by bohoomil (2014-02-27 22:05:13)

Franek · 2014-02-27 23:29:16

bohoomil wrote:

OK, please check out one more step. Open /etc/fonts/conf.d/30-metric-aliases-free.conf […]

There is no such file here. I do have a 30-metric-aliases.conf, but there is nothing about Consolas in it. I have the following files with "free" in /etc/fonts/conf.d/:

$ ls /etc/fonts/conf.d | grep free
37-repl-global-free.conf
60-latin-free.conf
65-non-latin-free.conf
66-aliases-wine-free.conf
93-final-lang-spec-free.conf

Here are all occurences of "[Cc]onsolas" in /etc/fonts/conf.d:

$ grep -i consolas /etc/fonts/conf.d/*
/etc/fonts/conf.d/37-repl-global-free.conf:  <!-- Consolas => Liberation Mono -->
/etc/fonts/conf.d/37-repl-global-free.conf:      <string>Consolas</string>
/etc/fonts/conf.d/37-repl-global-free.conf:      <string>Consolas</string>
/etc/fonts/conf.d/45-latin.conf:    <family>Consolas</family>
/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-tt-fonts.conf:      <string>Consolas</string>
/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-tt-fonts.conf:      <string>Consolas</string>

I discovered that it is not only lxterminal that forcibly replaces Consolas with Liberation Mono: It is the same for leafpad, and abiword, while pretending to use Consolas when told to, alsol displays Liberation Mono instead.

bohoomil · 2014-02-28 00:20:30

Did you pull the most recent fontconfig update (= 2.11.0-17)? If so, please run 'fc-presets set <3>' once again. If you run 'fc-presets check' afterwards, you should get the following output:

 6 symlinks found.
 The active preset seems to be [ free ].
 Checking symlinks now...

30-metric-aliases-free.conf is OK
37-repl-global-free.conf is OK
60-latin-free.conf is OK
65-non-latin-free.conf is OK
66-aliases-wine-free.conf is OK
93-final-lang-spec-free.conf is OK

In previous releases, 30-metric-aliases-free.conf was not present there.

We can try creating a little workaround. Put the following file in your $HOME/.config/fontconfig/conf.d:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>

  <!-- ## monospace ## -->
  <alias>
    <family>monospace</family>
    <prefer>
      <family>Consolas</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>

</fontconfig>

This will physically override settings in /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-latin-free.conf, forcing Consolas to be your default monospace alias (for your user account, of course).

Last edited by bohoomil (2014-02-28 00:21:09)

Franek · 2014-02-28 01:04:43

For some reason I only had version 2.11.0-15. I updated to 2.11.0-17 and made the fc-presets setting again, the output of "fc-presets check" is now identical to yours. The Consolas/Liberation Mono situation did not change from this.

Then I did the commenting you suggested in your previous post (I think you have the code duplicate there; I only commented two paragraphs). Still no change.

Strangely, not even the workaround you suggested last worked. (As you had not specified how to call the file, I used 10-consolas-workaround.conf as filename.)

Just to make sure: Should I have done something with fc-cache or the like after any of these steps? I did some restarting of X, but nothing else.

Last edited by Franek (2014-03-01 15:10:06)

bohoomil · 2014-02-28 20:09:36

Are you using a session manager that can handle font settings? As far as I can tell, lxappearance's font settings are pretty simple. However, it looks like there is a piece of software in your system that overrides fontconfig rules. Would you mind checking this out?

Franek · 2014-02-28 20:42:20

Of course I don't mind, I am the one being helped! (Thank you again!)

However, I feel like I am tapping in the dark now:
– I have used with lxappearance a few times, but one can only set the default GTK display font there, not the monospace font. (It is set to "Aller Standard 10" at the moment.)
– There is nothing in my .xinitrc that should do anything about fonts (see below for all the not-commented lines of my .xinitrc.
– I am using slim as my display manager, without multiple session.
– In the last weeks, I have used fontmatrix to browse fonts a few times. which has some (to me) cryptic functions like "Sync" and "Export fonts" which I might have triggered by accident. I found a fontmatrix-generated .fonts.conf in my home directory (see below for its content), moved it away, restarted X—no effect on Consolas/Liberation.

I am out of ideas for now.

Appendix:

# .xinitrc

xautolock -locker "xtrlock" &
xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap &
xbindkeys &
clipit &
gvolicon &
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr &
batterymon &
lxpanel &
wicd-client &
exec /usr/bin/xmonad

# .fonts.conf

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
    <dir>/home/carlos/.Fontmatrix/Activated</dir>
</fontconfig>

bohoomil · 2014-02-28 21:49:40

It is pretty weird... Try launching your WM directly from startx, without Slim.

Franek · 2014-03-01 14:30:55

Wow, I just disabled slim, rebooted, startx'd manually, and now all my UI fonts (apart from fonts inside web browser windows, apparently) look different! Smaller, to be precise, but still good. One thing did not change, though: Consolas/Liberation…

Edit: Confirmed by re-enabling and re-disabling slim, without changing anything else.

Edit 2:

It is getting even weirder. I just uninstalled the liberation fonts using

$ pacman -R ibfonts-meta-base ttf-liberation-ib

…, restarted X to be extra sure—and Consolas is still displayed as/replaced by Liberation Mono. How is this possible? There is no Liberation package installed on my system anymore (output of "pacman -Qs liberation" is empty).
(Edit 4: I was mistaken here, see my next post below. Consolas is still not displayed as itself, but not replaced by Liberation Mono anymore, but by Courier Prime.)

Something changed, though: While lxterminal behaves exactly like before (I can even select the Liberation fonts explicitely in its menu), the Liberation fonts have disappeared from he font selection menu of Leafpad. But when I try to select the Consolas font in leafpad now, it still does not work:
1) The preview in the font selection window shows Liberation Mono, not Consolas.
2) When I set Consolas as leafpad's display font anyway, it is displayed as Liberation Mono.
3) When I open the font selection dialogue again, "Sans" is preselected, not Consolas or Liberation Mono (which doesn't exist in the menu).

Edit 3:

For the record, I have now undone the steps suggested above (commenting in 30-metric-aliases-free.conf, file in $HOME/.config/fontconfig/conf.d) to keep the system in a clean state. If I should redo them for any further attempts, I can do so easily.

While the matter has meanwhile lost its urgency for me (I found out that I really like the Dina font on my terminal), I am still curious about what could be going on here. Is my system haunted by Liberation Mono?

Last edited by Franek (2014-03-01 18:24:00)

brebs · 2014-03-01 17:35:57

Do some checking:

$ fc-match "liberation mono"
LiberationMono-Regular.ttf: "Liberation Mono" "Regular"

$ lsof | grep -i liberation

Also, I don't trust the fontconfig cache. I would *exit xorg* (because this can crash xorg), then run as root:

fc-cache -f

Last edited by brebs (2014-03-01 17:37:56)

Franek · 2014-03-01 18:05:59

$ fc-match "liberation mono"
Courier Prime.ttf: "Courier Prime" "Regular"

$ lsof | grep -i liberation
(no output)

The above was/is the same before and after I ran "sudo fc-cache -f" with X turned off, which doesn't seem to have had any effect.

I have to correct one of my above statements: The font being replaced for Consolas after uninstalling Liberation Mono is not Liberation Mono, but apparently Courier Prime. It is still called Liberation Mono in lxterminal's preferences menu, though. So, to be clear, this is what happens presently:
1. I select Consolas in lxterminal's preferences menu, click "OK".
2. The font now being used by lxterminal is not Consolas, but Courier Prime.
3. lxterminal's preferences menu shows Liberation Mono being used, though.

Edit:
Not that it would make things any clearer (probably), but after I reinstalled ib-fonts-meta-base (and by dependency ttf-liberation-ib) and had a system update which involved fontconfig-infinality-ultimate, Consolas is not being replace by Liberation Mono or Courier Prime anymore, but by Inconsolatazi4 (yes, the name is displayed like this in lxterminal's preferences menu).

Maybe I will have to live with my system rejecting Consolas…

Last edited by Franek (2014-03-02 20:54:20)

agradzki · 2020-04-03 12:57:34

This is an old issue but one worth revisiting for those who encounter similar problems today due to configuration mistakes. I encountered a similar problem due to the prepend entry in /etc/fonts/local.conf

The remedy is to simply delete /etc/fonts/local.conf. I created this file myself during installation and forgot about it until now. It is safe to delete this file at least if you are using KDE.

This was the contents of my /etc/fonts/local.conf file prior to deletion. Notice the prepend entry which caused me trouble.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <match>
        <edit mode="prepend" name="family"><string>Noto Sans</string></edit>
    </match>
    <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="family"><string>serif</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Noto Serif</string></edit>
    </match>
    <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="family"><string>sans-serif</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Noto Sans</string></edit>
    </match>
    <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="family"><string>monospace</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Noto Mono</string></edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>

2ManyDogs · 2020-04-03 13:26:24

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the contribution. Be careful of necrobumping, especially when a thread is marked [SOLVED].

I am closing this old thread now.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-02-25 22:34:42

[solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#2 2014-02-26 01:14:39

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#3 2014-02-26 21:57:35

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#4 2014-02-27 05:25:08

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#5 2014-02-27 19:08:50

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#6 2014-02-27 20:29:08

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#7 2014-02-27 21:07:46

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#8 2014-02-27 21:26:57

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#9 2014-02-27 21:40:41

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#10 2014-02-27 21:46:07

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#11 2014-02-27 21:58:53

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#12 2014-02-27 22:04:30

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#13 2014-02-27 23:29:16

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#14 2014-02-28 00:20:30

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#15 2014-02-28 01:04:43

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#16 2014-02-28 20:09:36

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#17 2014-02-28 20:42:20

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#18 2014-02-28 21:49:40

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#19 2014-03-01 14:30:55

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#20 2014-03-01 17:35:57

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#21 2014-03-01 18:05:59

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#22 2020-04-03 12:57:34

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

#23 2020-04-03 13:26:24

Re: [solved] "monospace" font displayed as some other font

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