Recent changes in java-1.6.0-openjdk (font dependencies)

[Ronald Wahl]

Hi,

today I was very surprised that updating my F13 system required me to 
install ~20 fonts packages. Digging around a bit showed me that change 
in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package:

http://osdir.com/ml/general/2010-11/msg38744.html

Can anyone tell me the reason for all these fonts dependencies?

I think it is not the business of packages to require specific fonts. 
Fonts are something that should be entirely under control of the system 
administrator.

greets,
ron

[TK009]

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Ronald Wahl <rwahl(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote:
>  Hi,
>
>  today I was very surprised that updating my F13 system required me to
>  install ~20 fonts packages. Digging around a bit showed me that change
>  in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package:
>
>  http://osdir.com/ml/general/2010-11/msg38744.html
>
>  Can anyone tell me the reason for all these fonts dependencies?
>  
I would like to know the reason for this as well.

[TK009]

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 4:45 PM, TK009 <john.brown009(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Ronald Wahl <rwahl(a)gmx.de&gt;
> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > today I was very surprised that updating my F13 system required me to
> > install ~20 fonts packages. Digging around a bit showed me that change
> > in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package:
> >
> > http://osdir.com/ml/general/2010-11/msg38744.html
> >
> > Can anyone tell me the reason for all these fonts dependencies?
> >
>
>  I would like to know the reason for this as well.
>  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=657491

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le vendredi 26 novembre 2010 à 17:18 -0500, TK009 a écrit :
>  On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 4:45 PM, TK009
> <john.brown009(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  > On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Ronald Wahl <rwahl(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote:
>  >> Hi,
>  >>
>  >> today I was very surprised that updating my F13 system required me to
>  >> install ~20 fonts packages. Digging around a bit showed me that change
>  >> in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package:
>  >>
>  >> http://osdir.com/ml/general/2010-11/msg38744.html
>  >>
>  >> Can anyone tell me the reason for all these fonts dependencies?
>  >>
>  >
>  > I would like to know the reason for this as well.
>  >
>  
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=657491 
This is basically due to the fact openjdk fontconfig support is
incomplete, and that instead of querying fontconfig for the appropriate
fonts to use for a particular language it relies on hardcoded font lists
in property files.

(see /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0.x86_64/jre/lib/fontconfig.properties.src for
example)

Those lists are regularly out of date (obsolete/false content), do not
work when the installed font for a language is not the one specified
there, and do not specify the same fallbacks as the ones fontconfig (and
fontconfig apps) will use by itself.

Explicitely requiring font packages is a way to limit the breakage. It
sucks and is not really a long-term decision.

We had the same problem in firefox (that maintained its own private font
lists too) before it was changed to use the default fontconfig aliases
(sans, serif, monospace etc) under Linux instead of trying to outsmart
the native font management system.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Ronald Wahl]

On 27.11.2010 10:04, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
>  Le vendredi 26 novembre 2010 à 17:18 -0500, TK009 a écrit :
> > On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 4:45 PM, TK009<john.brown009(a)gmail.com>  wrote:
> >> On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Ronald Wahl<rwahl(a)gmx.de>  wrote:
> >>> today I was very surprised that updating my F13 system required me to
> >>> install ~20 fonts packages. Digging around a bit showed me that change
> >>> in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package:
> >>> http://osdir.com/ml/general/2010-11/msg38744.html
> >>> Can anyone tell me the reason for all these fonts dependencies?
> >>
> >> I would like to know the reason for this as well.
> >
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=657491
>
>  This is basically due to the fact openjdk fontconfig support is
>  incomplete, and that instead of querying fontconfig for the appropriate
>  fonts to use for a particular language it relies on hardcoded font lists
>  in property files.
>  <...>
>  Those lists are regularly out of date (obsolete/false content), do not
>  <...>
>  Explicitely requiring font packages is a way to limit the breakage. It
>  sucks and is not really a long-term decision. 
Thanks for the explanation. Is it possible to split out an openjdk 
subpackage with all (or a part) of the gui related things?

Another approach might be to synchronize the property files with the 
installed fonts using a small tool running after fonts are installed or 
removed from the system and using the font priorities in the fontconfig 
system.

Sure if you miss all fonts for your specific locale you may just see 
nothing or garbage but this problem is not limited to Java. It would be 
cool if one could specify a list of locales for his system and then 
require some virtual dependency like fonts-<locale> and each fonts 
package providing fonts for that locale have a Provides: fonts-<locale> 
in its spec file.

- ron

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le samedi 27 novembre 2010 à 13:30 +0100, Ronald Wahl a écrit :
>  On 27.11.2010 10:04, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
>  > Le vendredi 26 novembre 2010 à 17:18 -0500, TK009 a écrit :
>  >> On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 4:45 PM, TK009<john.brown009(a)gmail.com>  wrote:
>  >>> On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Ronald Wahl<rwahl(a)gmx.de>  wrote:
>  >>>> today I was very surprised that updating my F13 system required me to
>  >>>> install ~20 fonts packages. Digging around a bit showed me that change
>  >>>> in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package:
>  >>>> http://osdir.com/ml/general/2010-11/msg38744.html
>  >>>> Can anyone tell me the reason for all these fonts dependencies?
>  >>>
>  >>> I would like to know the reason for this as well.
>  >>
>  >> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=657491
>  >
>  > This is basically due to the fact openjdk fontconfig support is
>  > incomplete, and that instead of querying fontconfig for the appropriate
>  > fonts to use for a particular language it relies on hardcoded font lists
>  > in property files.
>  > <...>
>  > Those lists are regularly out of date (obsolete/false content), do not
>  > <...>
>  > Explicitely requiring font packages is a way to limit the breakage. It
>  > sucks and is not really a long-term decision.
>  
>  Thanks for the explanation. Is it possible to split out an openjdk 
>  subpackage with all (or a part) of the gui related things? 
I doubt it would be accepted, upstream is monolithic and jvm
modularization has just been pushed from Java 7 to Java 8 by Oracle.

>  Another approach might be to synchronize the property files with the
>
>  installed fonts using a small tool running after fonts are installed or 
>  removed from the system and using the font priorities in the fontconfig 
>  system. 
Another approach would be just to use fontconfig as-is without trying to
override it as fontconfig already maintains font indexes and updates
them on font package installation/removal. Just map each of the java
default families to a fontconfig default alias and be done with it.

>  Sure if you miss all fonts for your specific locale you may just see
>
>  nothing or garbage but this problem is not limited to Java. It would be 
>  cool if one could specify a list of locales for his system and then 
>  require some virtual dependency like fonts-<locale> and each fonts 
>  package providing fonts for that locale have a Provides: fonts-<locale> 
>  in its spec file. 
Our font packages already have font(:lang=foo) provides. Some
configurations of packagekit will even propose to install fonts for you
if you try to render text for which you have no font on system. Java's
problem is not that the infrastructure is not there it's that it's not
using it (same for all the software packages that try to scan font
directories and fail over their number instead of querying fontconfig
when they need a font)


-- 
Nicolas Mailhot