Jaunty fontconfig-config forces subpixel off

[Anders Kaseorg]

Binary package hint: fontconfig

fontconfig-config 2.6.0-1ubuntu10 disables subpixel text by installing a /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-no-sub-pixel.conf symlink. This forces some apps, like Firefox, to use grayscale text even if subpixel is enabled in Appearance Preferences. The symlink reappears on fontconfig-config upgrades even if it was manually deleted. This was previously configurable by debconf, but that functionality seems to have disappeared.

$ dpkg -c fontconfig-config_2.6.0-1ubuntu10_all.deb | grep sub-pixel
-rw-r--r-- root/root 225 2009-03-18 15:07 ./etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf
-rw-r--r-- root/root 226 2009-03-18 15:07 ./etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-no-sub-pixel.conf
-rw-r--r-- root/root 226 2009-03-18 15:07 ./etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-vbgr.conf
-rw-r--r-- root/root 225 2009-03-18 15:07 ./etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-bgr.conf
-rw-r--r-- root/root 226 2009-03-18 15:07 ./etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-vrgb.conf
lrwxrwxrwx root/root 0 2009-03-18 15:07 ./etc/fonts/conf.d/10-no-sub-pixel.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-no-sub-pixel.conf

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

The symlink is reappearing on package upgrades because it is not marked as a conffile. Here are some relevant open Debian bugs related to marking symlinks as conffiles:

http://bugs.debian.org/421344 “dpkg: does not gracefully handle symlink conffiles”
http://bugs.debian.org/421345 “lintian: does not alert on non-conffile symlink in /etc”
http://bugs.debian.org/421346 “debhelper: should automatically mark symlinks in /etc as conffiles”

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

this was fixed in the cleanup we did in the last few jaunty uploads.

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

No, this bug is still present in 2.6.0-1ubuntu11 (which I just downloaded from Launchpad even though it hasn’t hit the archive yet).

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

dpkg -l fontconfig\* please

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

even:
COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l fontconfig\*

Thanks!

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

oh nevermind. i think i know whats going on. thanks.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

importance high because of the bad font experience with subpixels being forced "off".

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

should be fixed now. we dont install no-subpixel.conf thorugh buildsystem any more and i retrigger the cleanup transition for the ubuntu12 upload

fontconfig (2.6.0-1ubuntu12) jaunty; urgency=low

  * more config rules cleanup; dont create 10-no-sub-pixel.conf link in package
    (conf.d/Makefile.am,Makefile.in)
    - update debian/patches/00_old_diff_gz.patch
  * remove languageselector.conf link creation from Makefile.am
    - update debian/patches/00_old_diff_gz.patch
  * also fix buildsystem patches to ship 10-hinting-slight.conf instead of
    10-hinting-medium.conf
    - update debian/patches/00_old_diff_gz.patch
    - update debian/patches/06_ubuntu_lcddefault.patch
    - update debian/patches/07_no_bitmaps.patch
  * retrigger "drop debconf transition" for this upload
    - update debian/fontconfig-config.postinst