Support better Arabic font

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

[Impact]

Arabic speaking users have requested better rendering of Arabic. This proposed upload addresses that wish. Related discussion is being held at <https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/14573>.

So how is this an SRUable bug fix and not just an enhancement which should go to -backports? Well, currently, if you install the Arabic language via Language Support, a couple of Arabic fonts packages are pulled. But even if you set an Arabic locale, those fonts won't make a difference. The explanation is that DejaVu fonts, which also are able to render Arabic, have higher fontconfig precedence. The user must mess with fontconfig themselves to change the effective font, which is a bug. (I can't tell if it ever worked as intended.)

So to summarize: This is a combination of a bug fix and an enhancement.

[Test Case]

* Install the language-selector-{gnome,common} packages
  from focal-proposed.

* Open the Language Support tool and install Arabic.

* Open a terminal window and run this command:

  LC_CTYPE=ar_EG.UTF-8 fc-match -a | head -10

* Find that Noto fonts are at the top of the list.

[Regression risk]

This will change the effective font for rendering Arabic for some users. But the user experience will be improved in those cases, not the opposite.

The change in font will only happen for users with an Arabic locale. The risk that other users would be affected by the change is low.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package language-selector - 0.206

---------------
language-selector (0.206) groovy; urgency=medium

  * Provide Noto fonts for rendering Arabic (LP: #1891733)
    - Let pkg_depends pull fonts-noto-core and fonts-noto-ui-core
      instead of fonts-arabeyes and fonts-kacst.
    - Add 69-language-selector-ar.conf but apply that configuration
      only for users with an Arabic locale, since it gives some Noto
      fonts higher fontconfig precedence than DejaVu Sans.

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Sun, 16 Aug 2020 02:16:02 +0200

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Hello Gunnar, or anyone else affected,

Accepted language-selector into focal-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/language-selector/0.204.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-focal to verification-done-focal. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-focal. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Verified the test case using language-selector-{common,gnome} 0.204.1 from focal-proposed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package language-selector - 0.204.1

---------------
language-selector (0.204.1) focal; urgency=medium

  * Provide Noto fonts for rendering Arabic (LP: #1891733)
    - Let pkg_depends pull fonts-noto-core and fonts-noto-ui-core
      instead of fonts-arabeyes and fonts-kacst.
    - Add 69-language-selector-ar.conf but apply that configuration
      only for users with an Arabic locale, since it gives some Noto
      fonts higher fontconfig precedence than DejaVu Sans.

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Thu, 20 Aug 2020 14:10:19 +0200

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for language-selector has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

The seed is now updated for both groovy and focal, and fonts-noto has been promoted to main:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fonts-noto/+bug/1892320/comments/5

Thanks Iain Lane!