Pango-graphite changes default UI font in Ubuntu 13.04

[Philip Reimer]

The pango-graphite package worked fine in 12.10.
When I upgraded to 13.04 I found that the package had disappeared, so I reinstalled it (via synaptic, version 0.9.3-0.2ubuntu1).
Immediately the default UI font changed to what looked like Linux Libertine (with some numerals missing and filled in by a sans font).
I removed pango-graphite and restarted and the default font was back to the Ubuntu font.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Philip Reimer (preimer)]

Having done further testing it seems that the bug is worse than originally reported: in Ubuntu 13.04 the pango-graphite package only works with certain fonts. I can't work out what the difference is between those that work and those that don't. I did some comparison between Linux distributions (Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Mint XFCE, and Linux Mint), and have attached screenshots of the most important results.

Key points:
- Of the distributions tested, Linux Mint XFCE and Linux Mint were the only ones in which pango-graphite behaved exactly as expected. The Ubuntu derivatives were all affected by the UI font problem. (Odd given that Mint itself is based on Ubuntu.)
- In Lubuntu and Xubuntu the pango-graphite package worked properly with all fonts tested, but changed the UI font. Therefore it is only in Ubuntu that pango-graphite fails to work for all Graphite fonts equally.
- In the Ubuntu screenshots the LibreOffice window is given for comparison. Conakry displayed correctly in gedit and Inkscape with pango-graphite installed, but Miao Unicode did not.
- In Lubuntu the UI font (and even the monospace font in leafpad) changed from the Ubuntu font to Miao Unicode, whereas in Xubuntu it changed from the Ubuntu font to some nondescript fallback sans.

In order to replicate these tests I have attached the .txt, .svg, and .odt files. (In gedit DeJaVu Sans will take precendence for the N’ko script over Conakry, which is why I changed the overall gedit font to Conakry for the Ubuntu screenshots. On the live sessions I simply disabled DeJaVu.)

The fonts can be found here:
https://github.com/phjamr/MiaoUnicode/blob/master/MiaoUnicode-Regular.ttf
http://www.evertype.com/fonts/nko/ (also the source of the N’ko sample text)

[Tom Oehser (tom-toms)]

Guys, HOW CAN THIS BE LOW?

It breaks the entire desktop!

When this package is installed, all my fonts in everything change to broken ones!

Even things like "putty" which use monospaced fonts suddenly are mashing time-roman like characters!

NOT "low"!