Ubuntu flips U+2404 & U+2405 symbols

[brianary]

The symbols for U+2404 SYMBOL FOR END OF TRANSMISSION and U+2405 SYMBOL FOR ENQUIRY have their symbols swapped.

U+2404 ␄ renders as ENQ, but should be EOT
U+2405 ␅ renders as EOT, but should by ENQ

Here's the reference info from the Unicode Consorium: http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2400.pdf

According to this discussion in another forum, FontForge swaps these symbols in their samples, which may have resulted in many incorrectly implemented fonts: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=632746

@Brironic

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: gucharmap 1:3.4.1.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-32.51-generic 3.2.30
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-32-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu14
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Oct 23 21:43:55 2012
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gucharmap
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gucharmap
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-28 (179 days ago)
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:3409): color-plugin-WARNING **: failed to get edid: unable to get EDID for output
 (gnome-settings-daemon:3409): color-plugin-WARNING **: unable to get EDID for xrandr-LVDS: unable to get EDID for output

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

This isn't present in the Ubuntu Font Family, so we need to work out where it's being substituted from. Please could you:

  1. Open "Character Map" (gucharmap)
  2. Search for "U+2404"
  3. Select U+2404
  4. Right Click on U+2404
  5. Note down the (actual) font shown in the right-click pop-up

[brianary (brian-webcoder)]

OK, the symbols are swapped for FreeMono, FreeSans, and FreeSerif.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Okay, that you for checking that. What version of the 'freefonts' package is installed on the machine in case. Could you check with:

  dpkg -l fonts-freefont-ttf

and note the version number?

[brianary (brian-webcoder)]

My package name was a bit different:

$ dpkg -l ttf-freefont
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-================================-================================-================================================================================
ii ttf-freefont 20100919-1 Freefont Serif, Sans and Mono Truetype fonts

[brianary (brian-webcoder)]

(This is how I found the package name:)

$ aptitude search freefont
p otf-freefont - Freefont Serif, Sans and Mono OpenType fonts
i ttf-freefont - Freefont Serif, Sans and Mono Truetype fonts

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Reviewing the changelog, it seems to be have been fixed in Debian bug #632746 ("ttf-freefont: Strange glyphs for some chars in Control Pictures block"):

  http://bugs.debian.org/632746
  http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/f/fonts-freefont/fonts-freefont_20120503-1/changelog

Thusly, this is fixed for the last couple of Ubuntu releases, but won't be present in an older version. We could probably backport it, but because of the change in the package name, I'm not sure if this would be a good idea in this case.

[brianary (brian-webcoder)]

I'm running 12.04. Is this because I upgraded, rather than installed clean?