Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

wire7ack · 2019-08-09 17:37:15

IMHO, a very strange coincidence. at the same time I asked a question on almost the same topic ; )

Last edited by wire7ack (2019-08-09 17:38:41)

EndUserOnly · 2019-08-09 18:24:40

hicolour wrote:

I started having the same issue - squares - in the same exact time in roxterm and rofi launcher, it needs to be soemthing else causing issue across different apps.
Can you cofirm the squares you were talking is something like this https://ibb.co/592Zc9j ?

The squares in your example have legible text; The squares I had were stacked two on two, and seemed to contain non-english character.

seth · 2019-08-09 20:49:35

Same problem, though. A replacement is rendered, for him w/ the missing utf-8 codepoints (the first one should be "e", so unless the font is *really* crappy … ;-)

Notice that "envy code r" is originally a vector font (ttf) so there's little point if this is just some auto-generated bitmap variant.

@wire7ack - there's no strangeness here, this is currently the most opened topic (check the dustbin where your post will soon go) because nobody searches the forum before posting…

Last edited by seth (2019-08-09 20:52:37)

karabaja4 · 2019-08-10 00:45:19

aussieevil wrote:

This is extremely frustrating. Are all the pixel fonts in the repository going to be upgraded soon to be pango-compatible?

Yeah it is frustrating.. the transition periods of the components that don't work well together or one is lagging behind the other.

I can't really blame the Pango developers while they're doing this work for free - so I can understand when they say "meh, the fonts look fine to me", but I really wish Linux had better QA...

BTW - this thread is maybe in a wrong sub-forum as it is a major, and not so "newbie" issue.

Trilby · 2019-08-10 02:44:49

aussieevil wrote:

This is extremely frustrating. Are all the pixel fonts in the repository going to be upgraded soon to be pango-compatible?

What? I hope not. If you want a ttf font, use a ttf font. I'm still using Terminus with no issues whatsoever - of course that's because I don't have pango installed. Given that the fonts don't depend on pango, it's a bit bass akwards to expect all fonts to adapt to pango's changes - some of them likely will, but let's not let the tail wag the dog entirely.

EndUserOnly · 2019-08-10 18:37:01

That was my first thought, remove pango and start fixing everything else. But pango is heavily coded into my system IE: Openbox, and LibreOffice both call for Pango; Weston - and gtk; so I am truly screwed. I see they have another Pango version 44-3, but I don't see the point in expecting a different result, the developers have a clear objective. To think I should have to retool completely because of pango is asinine. My wish is for developers to call for Graphite more. Pango should not have this kind of monopoly.

2ManyDogs · 2019-08-10 18:43:02

Please don't turn this into a "rant about pango" thread.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … pics/rants

EndUserOnly · 2019-08-12 12:00:19

I installed a 2nd desktop to do a side-by-side comparison; LXQT, with Motif Window Manager (instead of Openbox)/Linux Libertine G - font. And then upgraded Pango. LXQT did not miss a beat, no problem. Went back over to LXDE and it is fine, as well. The only thing I noticed was that from time to time (pun), my clock would turn from digital to the four blank squares (LXDE). Not sure what did it, but I am satisfied with the ultimate result.

frostschutz · 2019-08-12 12:39:24

I had some issues with Inkscape (SVG editor) which defaulted to bitmap font (I guess?) for the text tool. The result was an invisible text object width 0 height 0, unable to see any text, unable to select text and change font.

As a workaround you have to go into the Text Tool settings ([T] icon up top) and then select a different, working font and "Set as default".

Last edited by frostschutz (2019-08-12 12:39:43)

Heikete · 2019-08-13 07:26:42

I'm using a lot of bitmap fonts from AUR even in my default system font is Helvetica as I like pixel-perfect rendering and hinting is not always good. Am I doomed to convert all the fonts that I use to OTB?
What is the simplest, probably scriptable way to do that?
I'm missing especially:

artwiz-fonts 1.3-10
bdf-unifont 12.1.01-1
envypn-font 1.7.1-3
tamsyn-console-font 1.11-1
uw-ttyp0-font 1.2-1

Heikete · 2019-08-13 19:09:08

OK so the situation isn't that bad.
1. Some packages have already been ported to OTB, notably terminus and unifont.
2. The script using fontforge as an interpreter is fairy simple and allows batchable processing:
Script:

#!/usr/bin/fontforge
Open($1)
Generate($1:r + ".otb")

And we can run this for a lot of files:

 for f in *.pcf.gz; do ./convert.pe ${f}; done

I wish we had a tool though to add otb conversion as an installation step to all bitmap font packages in AUR.

Trilby · 2019-08-13 22:55:30

Heikete wrote:

I wish we had a tool though to add otb conversion as an installation step to all bitmap font packages in AUR.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman#Hooks

mr-straw · 2019-08-14 10:33:02

Heikete wrote:

#!/usr/bin/fontforge
Open($1)
Generate($1:r + ".otb")

I couldn't get this to work for Tamzen (bdf) or Termsyn (pcf), the resulting otb doesn't look good (font spacing seems wrong)

Last edited by mr-straw (2019-08-14 10:33:18)

progandy · 2019-08-14 11:00:55

mr-straw wrote:

I couldn't get this to work for Tamzen (bdf) or Termsyn (pcf), the resulting otb doesn't look good (font spacing seems wrong)

You can also try fonttosfnt in the AUR. The spacing issue sounds more like you'll need a new cairo version (1.17.2+17) which is currently only available in testing

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/is … ote_567758

Edit: Forgot that I hadn't updated pacman yet. It seems my daily update discipline is lacking at the moment.

Last edited by progandy (2019-08-14 12:25:00)

svito · 2019-08-14 12:08:52

cairo 1.17.2+17+g52a7c79fd-1 is week as in [community] repo, no need to enable [testing].

Last edited by svito (2019-08-14 12:09:37)

ondoho · 2019-08-30 05:21:38

I'm really with posts #30 and #31 on this one.

I have downgraded pango and added it to pacman.conf's IgnorePkg.
I guess it's only a question of time until this breaks, but for a few weeks it's been working fine.

So, as far as I understand the problem is that something has been removed from pango, and in theory it should be possible to put that back without breaking - how do you call that - forward compatibility?
Has this been attempted? A drop-in replacement that still includes support for (old) bitmap fonts, and is fully compatible with the current pango version?

EndUserOnly · 2019-08-30 12:59:01

The pango developers are not looking back. I installed a window manager that does not use pango. Now some fonts are not available withing certain applications, but my DE is fine.

Scimmia · 2019-08-30 13:59:40

ondoho wrote:

So, as far as I understand the problem is that something has been removed from pango ...

Look again, because that's not what happened.

ondoho · 2019-09-01 08:53:54

@EndUserOnly: Are you saying you uninstalled pango and your desktop is still usable?

@Scimmia: ~~OK so what actually happened to the code?~~ - I just re-read this thread and 2 linked articles, trying to understand what you mean. I don't know what sort of semantics you are pushing there, but something clearly got removed.

And, while I'm not too optimistic, is it possible to get the functionality back without breaking compatibility? I guess that would require a fork that is - at least for now - fully compatible with vanilla pango?

Last edited by ondoho (2019-09-01 09:30:02)

seth · 2019-09-01 10:57:35

You read https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05 … irections/ and do not understand why
a) nothing got "removed" and
b) there's little chance this will ever return?

Pango was turned into a slim frontend for harfbuzz. Harfbuzz doesn't do "legacy" bitmap fonts.
I'm not necessarily a fan of this step (let alone the performance - but I made up my mind about the involved characters long ago anyway), but what happened and the reasoning is pretty clear, isn't?

Trilby · 2019-09-01 12:41:43

ondoho wrote:

@EndUserOnly: Are you saying you uninstalled pango and your desktop is still usable?

He said he switched to a WM that doesn't depend on it - whether or not it is still installed is really a completely unrelated issue. I've never had pango installed, and my system still works fine. It should be obvious that tools (WMs, DEs) that don't depend on pango would not be affected by changes in pango!

Last edited by Trilby (2019-09-01 12:42:53)

ugjka · 2019-09-01 13:36:20

I can't be arsed to anything about this on my system. My hope is that the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem will reorganise over time and will stop using legacy font formats. Pretty sure this will happen when this change hits all the big distributions that are not rolling release.

In the meanwhile I'm missing out on all that non-asciii fun in some applications but I don't understand any Chinese or Japanese anyway.

ondoho · 2019-09-02 09:15:05

People who insist that "Nothing got removed" are playing some sort of semantic game - clearly support for font loading via freetype got removed.

And the fact that I am using an older version of pango - that hasn't been "turned into a slim frontend for harfbuzz" yet - succesfully with applications that would work with the new version as well shows that - at least in theory - it should be possible to design pango in a way that it does both.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining (well, a little maybe), I'm not demanding that this be done - just asking if efforts in that direction exist.

A simple "no" would have sufficed.

The next obvious remark is "fork it yourself".

@EndUserOnly: So you installed a different window manager only to be able to still use bitmap fonts for window decorations?

seth · 2019-09-02 14:47:35

Of course it would "be possible to design pango in a way that it does both" - simply do what pango used to do. But there was a deliberate choice to no longer implement/maintain fotn loading in pango and completely rely on harfbuzz.
This is why this isn't just a "semantic game", there's a reason why there're different terms for things. If it just got "removed" (like in a high-handed dick move to piss you off) it could just as much be re-added. But that is not the case.

Also please be aware that (as pointed out in this thread several times) you still can use (otb) bitmap fonts. That's why this here is mostly "lousy performance" by announcing todays brain-fart in ones unread private blog and then dumping it on everybody the next week instead of eg. giving the major distros a heads-up "hey, we'll loose the ability to load pcf's in 6 months, please seek to convert the ones you use into otb's" which then could get wired down to the font creators and we'd not having these pointless discussions here.

I could imagine that EndUserOnly therefore rather switched the WM to no longer be subject to such moves, rather than merely to use pcf bitmap fonts…

EndUserOnly · 2019-09-05 12:24:58

ondoho wrote:

People who insist that "Nothing got removed" are playing some sort of semantic game - clearly support for font loading via freetype got removed.
And the fact that I am using an older version of pango - that hasn't been "turned into a slim frontend for harfbuzz" yet - succesfully with applications that would work with the new version as well shows that - at least in theory - it should be possible to design pango in a way that it does both.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining (well, a little maybe), I'm not demanding that this be done - just asking if efforts in that direction exist.
A simple "no" would have sufficed.
The next obvious remark is "fork it yourself".
@EndUserOnly: So you installed a different window manager only to be able to still use bitmap fonts for window decorations?

No. I discovered that LXDE is actually outdated, and loaded LXQt (the new LXDE). In LXQt I choose to not use Openbox (which depends on Pango) so that whatever the Pango developers do in the future, does not affect me.

Correct Seth.

Last edited by EndUserOnly (2019-09-05 12:25:39)

Arch Linux

#26 2019-08-09 17:37:15

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#27 2019-08-09 18:24:40

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#28 2019-08-09 20:49:35

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#29 2019-08-10 00:45:19

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#30 2019-08-10 02:44:49

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#31 2019-08-10 18:37:01

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#32 2019-08-10 18:43:02

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#33 2019-08-12 12:00:19

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#34 2019-08-12 12:39:24

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#35 2019-08-13 07:26:42

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#36 2019-08-13 19:09:08

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#37 2019-08-13 22:55:30

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#38 2019-08-14 10:33:02

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#39 2019-08-14 11:00:55

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#40 2019-08-14 12:08:52

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#41 2019-08-30 05:21:38

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#42 2019-08-30 12:59:01

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#43 2019-08-30 13:59:40

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#44 2019-09-01 08:53:54

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#45 2019-09-01 10:57:35

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#46 2019-09-01 12:41:43

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#47 2019-09-01 13:36:20

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#48 2019-09-02 09:15:05

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#49 2019-09-02 14:47:35

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

#50 2019-09-05 12:24:58

Re: Pango update: bitmap fonts display as squares

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