fontconfig packaging suggestion
Ken Brown
kbrown@cornell.edu
Thu Apr 3 22:52:00 GMT 2014
Yaakov,
There is a problem with having fontconfig include the Windows Fonts
directory in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. Namely, the font cache for that
directory is very likely to be out of date [*], but most users have no
idea that they need to run fc-cache to keep it up to date. This can
cause slowdowns or worse for applications that use fontconfig. See, for
instance http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2013-12/threads.html#00246 and
several similar reports that came later.
I propose that fontconfig *not* include the Windows Fonts directory, but
that a new package (perhaps called fontconfig-windows-fonts) be created
that takes over this functionality. This could either be a subpackage
of fontconfig or an independent package, in which case I would be glad
to maintain it.
This package would handle the Windows Fonts directory by creating the
appropriate file in /etc/fonts/conf.d, and it would also provide a
script that calls fc-cache to update the Windows Fonts cache. The
release announcement would warn users that the script should be called
whenever the Windows Fonts directory changed. And I would explicitly
advise emacs-X11 users *not* to install the package unless they really
want to be able to use Windows fonts while running emacs under X.
WDYT?
Ken
[*] This can happen because of a Windows Update, or because software was
added or removed, or because the user knowingly installed or removed fonts.
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