Bug 2186953 - Irrelevant fonts in the English install (KDE spin)
Summary: Irrelevant fonts in the English install (KDE spin)
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: Fonts
Version: 39
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: fedora i18n bugs
QA Contact: Fedora fonts special interest group
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2023-04-15 02:20 UTC by ddascalescu
Modified: 2023-12-11 08:15 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2023-12-11 08:15:14 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Unnecessary fonts (200.93 KB, image/png)
2023-04-15 02:20 UTC, ddascalescu
no flags Details
Chinese input methods in US English install (177.62 KB, image/png)
2023-04-15 02:23 UTC, ddascalescu
no flags Details
Ridiculous font drop-down (2.93 MB, image/gif)
2023-04-17 04:26 UTC, ddascalescu
no flags Details

Description ddascalescu 2023-04-15 02:20:44 UTC
Created attachment 1957563 [details]
Unnecessary fonts

I've just installed the KDE spin with the US English settings, and see tens of completely irrelevant fonts for characters sets I have no use form (cuneiform even).

I know I can remove these manually, but it would be nice to not have them installed to begin with.

Comment 1 ddascalescu 2023-04-15 02:23:59 UTC
Created attachment 1957564 [details]
Chinese input methods in US English install

Also, a "Chinese Pinyin input method" component was installed and visible in Discover, and a "Zhuyin" one.

Comment 2 Jens Petersen 2023-04-16 01:00:06 UTC
Hi, well I understand your point, but these packages are really relevant to some users.
At the same time the world had/has been becoming more global and international...
Maybe what we should do though is to make it easier to remove and install these kinds of packages.
'langpacks' meta packages is a first step in this direction.
In fact we are thinking to introduce more fonts meta packages in Fedora 39 which may help with this too.

Comment 3 ddascalescu 2023-04-17 04:26:11 UTC
Created attachment 1957781 [details]
Ridiculous font drop-down

> but these packages are really relevant to some users

Those users are a tiny minority, and the vast majority suffers from interminable font drop downs like in the screencast.

Those users most likely will install in their language (in which case installing all the fonts is fair game).

And the amount of users who SIMULTANEOUSLY need Khmer and Devangari and Anatolian Hieroglyphs, is zero.

> Maybe what we should do though is to make it easier to remove and install these kinds of packages.

Why are these fonts opt-out post-install and not opt-in pre-install?

What if the installer had a list of fonts? Then the users who really need them will select them and proceed. Heck, even select them all by default - that would still give a chance to the vast majority to unselect them. And I'd bet that at that point, when it's readily visible how much font junk would get installed by default, we'd get tickets to make them *unselected* by default.

Comment 4 Akira TAGOH 2023-04-17 08:47:26 UTC
> Why are these fonts opt-out post-install and not opt-in pre-install?

Because that will makes Live image unusable. one who wants to use on non-English will always needs to install Live. that is opposed to the idea on Live.

Comment 5 ddascalescu 2023-04-17 08:53:42 UTC
I don't know exactly how Live replicates itself to another disk, but at some point before the file copying process starts, would it be possible to ask the user about fonts? Perhaps in the language chooser dialog?

Comment 6 Jens Petersen 2023-04-17 11:07:59 UTC
(In reply to ddascalescu from comment #3)
> Created attachment 1957781 [details]
> Ridiculous font drop-down

Okay I had a look too: it does seem that Libreoffice Writer has considerably
more font entries showing under Fedora KDE than Fedora Gnome at least.
It might related to Qt's font handling too.

> Why are these fonts opt-out post-install and not opt-in pre-install?

Well currently most install images are static, so changes can only be made post-install
and we want to support localized installations as Akira mentioned.

Comment 7 Akira TAGOH 2023-04-21 07:31:24 UTC
(In reply to ddascalescu from comment #5)
> I don't know exactly how Live replicates itself to another disk, but at some
> point before the file copying process starts, would it be possible to ask
> the user about fonts? Perhaps in the language chooser dialog?

I'm not concerned about install from Live. as I said, the problem is that non-English speakers can't use Live WITHOUT installing. I mean they can't just try it out.
Some font packages is huge to install on overlay storage.

Comment 8 Akira TAGOH 2023-10-30 08:19:14 UTC
Moving to 39. We have new feature in f39 to improve default fonts handling as https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/ImproveDefaultFontHandling.

Please make sure that you don't have "default-fonts" installed otherwise try "rpm -e --nodeps default-fonts" first.
then do "dnf remove" undesired language default fonts packages such as default-fonts-other* and/or default-fonts-<langtag> meta pcakges.

Please let us know if you have any further issues.

Comment 9 Parag Nemade 2023-12-11 08:15:14 UTC
We discussed this bug in our Fedora bi-weekly meeting today. Concluded that we have no more thing left to discuss here.
User can remove fonts as per steps given in above comment by Akira.


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