The command usage "fc-match Serif:lang=xx" where xx is any language not revealing correct results

[K. Sethu]

Binary package hint: fontconfig

To find out what font the fontconfig matches to a generic, say Sans, for a language, say English-US, I can use fc-match command in following two ways:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8 && fc-match Sans

fc-match Sans:lang=en_US.UTF-8

Of the above two it is usually the second I use for finding what fonts are set to Sans, Mono and Serif for different languages.

Now in freshly installed Ubuntu 10.10 - Beta platform / Gnome Desktop/ I find that the second form fails to reveal correct matching only in case of Serif generic for any language.

I have shown comparison of the above two forms of command usage - Sans, Mono and Serif respectively for languages en-US, ta_IN (Tamil), si_LK (Sinhala) and hi_IN (Hindi).

As shown by the boxed in (with red) parts , the above 2nd form of usage on left terminal yields match to Serif for each language wrongly as "Lohit Tamil" font whereas on the right side the first form if usage reveals correct matches.

By checking out effects of changing fonts in GEDIT, I have found that actual matching is correct as revealed by the first of the above two forms. So it is the second syntax that is affected only for Serif.

Since I noticed another issue with newly introduced 90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf (ref: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ttf-indic-fonts/+bug/630269 ) I got to wonder whether the newly introduced 90-ttf-<language>-fonts.conf (wherein <language> to mean Tamil, Hindi etc ) files in /etc/fonts/conf.avail cause these problems. I removed the "/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf" link first. Sure enough "Lohit Tamil" changed to "Lohit Punjabi" in the above mentioned wrong results. Then removing the link for Punjabi, the wrong result changes to another indic language font and so on. Removing such "90-ttf-" links for all indic languages restores normalcy for the fc-match command usage with ":lang=" element !

So it appears the bug arises from the conf files whose file name start with "90-ttf-"

K. Sethu

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: fontconfig 2.8.0-2ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-19.28-generic 2.6.35.3
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-19-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Sep 6 07:11:35 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Beta i386 (20100901.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: fontconfig

[K. Sethu (skhome)]

Oh, I need to correct somethings I mentioned in comment #1. I had mentioned :
//
Now in freshly installed Ubuntu 10.10 - Beta platform / Gnome Desktop/ I find that the second form fails to reveal correct matching only in case of Serif generic for any language.

I have shown comparison of the above two forms of command usage - Sans, Mono and Serif respectively for languages en-US, ta_IN (Tamil), si_LK (Sinhala) and hi_IN (Hindi).

As shown by the boxed in (with red) parts , the above 2nd form of usage on left terminal yields match to Serif for each language wrongly as "Lohit Tamil" font whereas on the right side the first form if usage reveals correct matches.
//

Matching "Lohit Tamil" to Serif for lang=ta (Tamil) is correct. But for all other languages (including lang= en/si/hi sown in display) the apparent matching of Serif to "Lohit Tamil" is wrong.

Similarly as mentioned later below in my comment #1, when 90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf is delinked, the apparent matching of Serif to "Lohit Punjabi" is correct for Punjabi but wrong for all other languages.

K. Sethu

[Rex Tsai (chihchun)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu. 10.10 reached EOL on April 10, 2012.
See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

I've tried recreating this bug with 14.04 trusty and was unable to, given the information you've provided. Please upgrade to the latest version and re-test. If the bug is still reproducible, increase the verbosity of the steps to recreate it so we can try again.

Please note the language code of en-us. Do feel free to report any other bugs you may find.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for fontconfig (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]