The yes-bitmaps rule makes it impossible to disable any bitmap font on a per-user basis

[Martin Stjernholm]

Binary package hint: fontconfig-config

If I enable the yes-bitmaps rule globally (i.e. fix the /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-yes-bitmaps.conf link) then it's not possible to disable any bitmap font with <rejectfont> elements in the user local ~/.fonts.conf.

It looks like this is due to the fact that <acceptfont> elements (which is used by /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf) always override <rejectfont> (according to fonts.conf(5)), and the user specific settings is given no priority over the system settings.

Ideally user settings should always override system settings regardless of the priority between elements, but a short-term fix seems to be to always avoid <acceptfont> elements in the /etc/fonts/conf.d files. In the case of the 70-yes-bitmaps.conf file, there is no need to specify an <acceptfont> element at all since fonts are accepted by default.

[Martin Stjernholm (msub)]

Version info: Feisty, fontconfig-config 2.4.2-1ubuntu1

[Kriston Rehberg (me-kriston)]

See Bug #200713 which proposes a fix to the font configuration file order problem.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this symptom still reproducible in 8.10 beta?

[Martin Stjernholm (msub)]

Again I can only speak for 8.04, but yes, it's still there.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

may you please test it with 8.10 or jaunty and give us feedback? thanks in advance.

[Martin Stjernholm (msub)]

It remains exactly the same in 8.10: User settings cannot override <acceptfont> tags in the system settings, and it's unaffected by order.

What is the reason for having <acceptfont> tags in the system settings when fonts are accepted by default? Afaict the only purpose of <acceptfont> is to explicitly override a <rejectfont> elsewhere.

[Martin Stjernholm (msub)]

No change in Jaunty.

[Vish (vish)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

We'd like to figure out what's causing this bug for you, but we haven't heard back from you in a while. Could you please provide the requested information? If so, please feel free to mark this bug as new. Thanks!

[Martin Stjernholm (msub)]

/etc/conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf is a dummy file containing only an empty fontconfig element in Maverick, so the "short-term" I mentioned in the initial report has been implemented.