Bug 1495199 - fontconfig no longer finds dingbats font after updating to urw-base35-fonts
Summary: fontconfig no longer finds dingbats font after updating to urw-base35-fonts
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: urw-base35-fonts
Version: rawhide
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: David Kaspar // Dee'Kej
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2017-09-25 13:14 UTC by Mattias Ellert
Modified: 2017-10-04 14:21 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version: urw-base35-fonts-20170801-2.fc27
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-10-04 14:21:10 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Mattias Ellert 2017-09-25 13:14:42 UTC
Description of problem:

In current Fedora 26:

$ rpm -q urw-fonts
urw-fonts-2.4-23.fc26.noarch
$ fc-match dingbats
d050000l.pfb: "Dingbats" "Regular"

In fedora rawhide:

$ rpm -q urw-base35-fonts
urw-base35-fonts-20170801-1.fc28.noarch
$ fc-match dingbats
NimbusSans-Regular.t1: "Nimbus Sans" "Regular"

 - which is not the correct font

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

urw-base35-fonts-20170801-1.fc28.noarch

How reproducible:

Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. See above

Actual results:

dingbats font not found with "fc-match dingbats" as it used to be with the old version of the urw-fonts. Regression.

Expected results:

dingbats font not found with "fc-match dingbats" as before.

Additional info:

Other URW fonts are still found with the same name as before (I didn't check them all though):

Fedora 26:
$ fc-match symbol
s050000l.pfb: "Standard Symbols L" "Regular"
$ fc-match urwchanceryl
z003034l.pfb: "URW Chancery L" "Medium Italic"

Fedora rawhide:
$ fc-match symbol
StandardSymbolsPS.t1: "Standard Symbols PS" "Regular"
$ fc-match urwchanceryl
Z003-MediumItalic.t1: "Z003" "Medium Italic"

Comment 1 Mattias Ellert 2017-09-25 13:23:50 UTC
Cut and paste error. It should of course be:

Expected results:

dingbats font found with "fc-match dingbats" as before.

Comment 2 David Kaspar // Dee'Kej 2017-09-25 14:56:29 UTC
Hello, thanks for the bug report!

I have fix ready, but I'm currently testing it myself. Please, hold on there for a little longer. Thank you! :)

Comment 3 David Kaspar // Dee'Kej 2017-09-26 11:23:25 UTC
Hello Mattias,

I have created a new build for Rawhide:
https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=975390

It worked for me. Could you please test it if works for you as well? Thanks!

Comment 4 David Kaspar // Dee'Kej 2017-09-26 11:24:23 UTC
Here's the explanation of what happened that I have posted in Bodhi:
====================================================================

Hello people! Thank you for hanging out there why I was dealing with this.

TL;DR;
I would like to apologize for the problems caused. This was not intentional for
this to happen, and I'm really sorry for that. The new packages to solve this
issue are currently being build.

WHY THIS UPDATE?
Many people do not realize that, but (URW)++ fonts are needed by ghostscript for
displaying correctly PostScript, PDF and other document types, as well as for
conversition between these formats. And ghotscript is also used by many other
applications, like Evince, ImageMagick, etc.

Because the current package `urw-fonts` in Fedora was a total mess, there were
problems with versioning, and the fonts were outdated which started to be
significant problem for ghostscript, I have decided (as a ghostscript maintainer)
to create a new fonts package from scratch, which would follow Fedora Packaging
Guidelines, and would be more easily maintainable for the future.

WHAT CAUSED THESE PROBLEMS?
The main problem with this was in fontconfig priority/ordering, as many of you
have found out. But to answer this properly, I need to give you more background.

Previously, the `urw-fonts` package was using config files from fontconfig
directly. They were part of the `30-metric-aliases.conf` and `30-metric-aliases.conf`,
in the `/etc/fonts/conf.d` folder.

When I was doing the "cleanup" for the new package, we agreed with `urw-base35-fonts`
and `fontconfig` upstreams to move these config files into the new package, as it
is preferable by fontconfig and FPG.

During creation of a new package, I have decided to use `35` as the new priority/ordering
value. (That effectively means lowering the priority compared to initial value of `30`.)
This was a safety precausion, because I wanted to make sure the new fontconfig
files would not mess up with default fontconfig configuration.

We agreed with fontconfig upstream/maintainer to do a release together via Bodhi.
And here's where I made the mistake. I didn't realize that creating a new update
in Bodhi for a new package would actually replace it for all users with the old
`urw-fonts` package. My expectation was that it would just live in the updates
repository alongside the (old) `urw-fonts`, and will be just available to people
who would manually install the (new) `urw-base35-fonts`.

I wanted the new package to be ready for new fontconfig release, and for other
steps I was preparing for the transition.

For some reason, after you have updated the package, it started to changing the
default font configurations you had on your system. I really have no clue why
it happened just now, and not before, since the fontconfig configuration was
effectively before on the system as well. My wild guess is that the old
`urw-fonts` package was such a mess that this issue had never came up to surface
before?

Unfortunately, combination of this riddle and my screw-up is what caused all of
these problems for you. :(

WHY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET IT FIXED?
I have learned about this issue yesterday morning, and I had the fixes ready
relatively fast. However, before making a new release, I wanted to make sure
it fixes everything that was reported...

The rest of the day I've spent *trying* (I'm not kidding) to install F26, F27,
and Rawhide into VM (*KVM/QEMU*). And with no success... o.O The installation
took so much time everytime (I don't know why), and after I have finally finished
the installation, it wouldn't boot up. I have tried different ways to get around it,
but after several hours I gave up.

I have tested the basics that I could in our internal Fedora instances in OpenStack,
and decided to release it now to not block the fixes longer.

UPDATE:
Seems like all the build have passed successfully.

WHAT NOW?
As I said before, I will be pushing new updates, but after discussion with
fontconfig upstream/maintainer only for F27 and Rawhide. I never wanted to
endanger the released Fedora, and don't want to change that. Luckily, the Bodhi
process helped to stop the updates before them reaching the stable repository.

For all of you on F25 and F26 I have created a builds also that you can manually
download, and which should (hopefully) fix your problems for now.

After that we can try to workaround how you can install the `urw-fonts` back.

Also, if you would find any problems with the new versions of the package, please,
let me now so I can fix it ASAP. And if you have any other feedback, feel free
to lay it on me.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Once again, I'm really sorry this happened. It was not intentional mistake, and
I have learned some important lesson in that. I appreciate all your feedback and
patience.

 -- Dee'Kej --

Comment 5 Fedora Update System 2017-09-26 11:40:08 UTC
urw-base35-fonts-20170801-2.fc27 has been submitted as an update to Fedora 27. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2017-0de4a9558d

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2017-09-26 17:55:45 UTC
urw-base35-fonts-20170801-2.fc27 has been pushed to the Fedora 27 testing repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for
instructions on how to install test updates.
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2017-0de4a9558d

Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2017-10-04 14:21:10 UTC
urw-base35-fonts-20170801-2.fc27 has been pushed to the Fedora 27 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.


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