On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, Brian K. Jones wrote:
>Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 22:30:28 -0500
>From: Brian K. Jones <jonesy@cs.princeton.edu>
>To: psyche-list@redhat.com
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>List-Id: Discussion of Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Psyche) <psyche-list.redhat.com>
>Subject: Re: True type fonts in mozilla./evolution
>
>On Wednesday 06 November 2002 5:28 pm, Mike A. Harris wrote:
>
>> This is not a "Red Hat decides to be different from everyone
>> else" thing.
>
>This is precisely a 'Red Hat decides to be different from everyone else
>thing', as you yourself say later in this email, and I quote:
No it isn't, you completely and totally are misconstruing things.
>"Red Hat just happens to be the first to boldly use this innovative new font
> technology."
Yes, that is right. New features in new software, and in fact
new software itself has to be used by someone first. XFree86.org
created this software, and Red Hat is using it. We just happen
to be the first to do so. Everyone else will be doing so as well
in the future. My point is that this is not Red Hat creating
some software that is different from everyone else and going off
on our own, or being incompatible with everyone else, like some
people make it out to sound.
It is standard XFree86.org source code, that is available for
everyone to use, and was produced by XFree86.org, NOT by Red Hat.
*that* is my point. Those who think negatively of Red Hat,
simply because we are the first to use this wonderful new
technology produced by XFree86.org need to get a clue.
>Red Hat is, BTW, the first to do a lot of the things they do.
>I don't think anyone has a problem with this per se. The
>problem is that there doesn't seem to be any documentation
>available to ease the pain in migration for new users of this
>'brand new technology'. Seems like Red Hat might've considered
>that since they *are* the first to step so boldly into this new
>frontier, they better prepare the rest of us that are still
>stuck in the old country. Just a suggestion.
And we've done that, by allowing backward compatibility. I think
people would be somewhat upset, if I were to disable the xfs font
server, and core X server support, and ship only Xft2. Think
about it.
>While the release notes, IIRC, do mention Xft, I don't believe
>they mention fontconfig (or fontconfig-config for that matter).
>I found it during my stumbling. I also discovered that while
>Xft was being used, so was xfs, and so now there were double the
>font directories, double the config files, etc. This stumbling
>could've been made completely unnecessary if not for the brevity
>of the release notes. Again, it's not the new technology I'm
>complaining about - it's this idea that everyone will just
>automagically know what to do with it.
Or prehaps some people just don't actually *read* the
RELEASE-NOTES. And I quote:
o Red Hat Linux now uses Xft for fonts in GNOME and KDE, which uses
fontconfig for configuring fonts. The old style Xft config file
/etc/X11/XftConfig is no longer used or supported, having been
replaced by the new unified fontconfig method of configuration. The
fontconfig config file can be customized by editing
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf file.
If you have fonts that you would like to add to your configuration,
you can copy them to ~/.fonts (or /usr/share/fonts), and run fc-cache
directory. The fonts will then be available.
Perhaps had you read that, you would have known what to do, and
wouldn't to stumble around.
>> Xft is a client side font library which uses the RENDER extension
>> to produce antialiased fonts. Xft is a core part of XFree86, and
>> not some random Red Hat thing like some people seem to think.
>> Xft has been included in XFree86 for a while now, and antialiased
>> fonts have been available in KDE now for a while as well. The
>> first Xft library (Xft1) was available in some previous Red Hat
>> Linux releases, and if you enabled AA fonts in KDE, then you were
>> using it. Most of the rest of the system did not use Xft at that
>> time.
>
>I did not imagine this *library* was a 'random Red Hat thing'. The fact that
>they've decided to shove it down my throat is a bit inconvenient though.
It's not shoved down your throat. Legacy fonts using core server
fonts are supported now as much as they ever have been.
>I maintain X servers for a decent number of users who believe
>that fonts should look and behave consistently across
>applications.
And that is exactly why Xft and fontconfig exist.
>When they don't, I need to fix it or explain why I can't fix it.
>It would've saved me a good bit of time and detective work to
>just have *some* of what you say in this email up front. It's
>valuable, and I hope other people find this thread.
Perhaps you might want to read the RELEASE-NOTES before
installing next time then, from start to finish, and make sure to
take note of anything that might affect you, such as the
documented Xft and fontconfig.
>Awesome. Thanks again to Keith Packard. It's nice (for me,
>anyway) to know this is a part of the XFree86 project.
>Fontconfig is still a point of confusion for me, because 'man
>fontconfig' seems to be library documentation, not a description
>of how to use a tool to configure your fonts. Doing a 'locate
>fontconfig' doesn't turn up a binary either - but turns up
>'fontconfig-config', which I should think is useful, but there's
>no manpage for it, and running it with --help... well....
>doesn't. Still looking for docs on how to work with this new
>system in my spare time.
Copy fonts into ~/.fonts, or into one of the systemwide ttf font
directories. No "configuration" required. It's already done.
>> Having this wonderful new font technology, and having nothing
>> using it, isn't too beneficial. Not to XFree86, not to Linux,
>> not to the Linux userbase, and not to Red Hat users, or any other
>> distribution's users.
>
>Agreed. In addition, having this new technology and not telling
>people what the heck is going on and how to hack this beast into
>submission is also less than useful to some of us. I can't
>deploy until I know what's going on - in gory detail - with
>probably about 40% of the packages on the Redhat CDs. Xft would
>be one of those packages.
Xft is installed automatically. You don't need to know about it
at all, or even know it exists.
>> Unfortunately, you don't just change a major piece of
>> infrastructure over night, flick a switch and have every
>> application working using the new interfaces. It takes time for
>> people to port old legacy apps, and even some newer apps to the
>> new interfaces. There are many apps that do NOT yet use the new
>> Xft interfaces, and as such they still use the legacy X server
>> fonts via xfs. Until someone ports all of those applications to
>> use Xft, there will be a necessity for both Xft and xfs to
>> co-exist, and as such there will be a necessity for 2 different
>> font configuration systems. One, fontconfig, and the other, the
>> traditional xfs font server config or X server config.
>
>So let me get this straight: Red Hat has gone ahead and created (really nice)
>interfaces to configure everything from X windows to apache to Samba and NFS
>to your firewall - even though most of that stuff hasn't gone through any
>major change - making these interfaces most useful to newbies. But for the
>one thing that causes system administrators some pain, there has been no tool
>or pretty interface to help create a seamless font configuration across the
>two main font configuration methods?
>
>I'm not griping about these new interfaces, mind you. They're better than
>linuxconf IMHO, and I don't really use guis anyway. I'm just pointing out
>something that seems ironic to me. I would imagine it would be up to redhat
>and not the XFree86 people to come up with such a tool.
The tool, is any filemanager. Copy font files into any existing
font directory containing TTF files. Then reboot. Simple as it
is in Windows. The fonts should be available in both Xft2, Xft1,
and legacy font applications. Is the reboot required? No, but
we're aiming for "simple" here, so that is the way most Windows
users grok things, and is the simplest quickest answer not
requiring any reading, or technical knowledge. For more technical
folk, simply do a "service xfs reload" as has always worked in
the past. For any apps using Xft, any new fonts added are made
available the next time the app is ran.
So, unified font configuration is:
1) Put fonts into systemwide TTF font directory
2) "service xfs reload"
3) Restart any applications that you want the fonts to show up
in.
Steps 2 and 3 can be replaced by a "reboot". I'm not sure how
much simpler it can get than that. Why on earth would one need
some GUI "font configuration tool"? Does Windows need such a
tool? Does Macintosh? Does any sane OS? No, not really. And
you don't need one really in Red Hat Linux either. If fonts are
placed in the correct place, and the system restarted, or
manually restart as above, things "just work(TM)", which is the
whole point.
>> The alternative, would be shipping the same old 1985 crap forever
>> and not ever switching to the new font technology that Keith has
>> written.
>>
>> So if you wonder why "Red Hat decided to render fonts different",
>> now you know. It is called progress, and evolution. People who
>> want to use the ancient font garbage from 1985 that X has
>> traditionally come with, might prefer to use Red Hat Linux 4.2,
>> or somesuch.
>
>Well, now that you've explained all of this, that would appear
>*not* to be the case. I suppose someone who wanted to use the
>old 'crap' could probably just get rid of Xft altogether. Not
>that *I* would do that (now that I've gotten a clue, for which I
>have you to thank).
Well, both GNOME and KDE require Xft, so getting rid of Xft would
involve getting rid of GNOME and KDE, and deleting core libraries
that are a part of XFree86. Users are free to do that of course,
it is open source afterall. Such systems would be unsupported
however.
>> >Do I now have to know two different font rendering configs to
>> >get all my apps to use TTF?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>
>Understood. Not completely amused by the additional work, but glad to have
>some light shone on the subject.
Well, as I mentioned above, you don't really need to know much at
all about the 2 systems if you follow the steps I mentioned. If
you want to understand what is going on at the deepest level
and/or play with low levels of font configuration, then yes, you
need to know both, however that should be completely unnecessary.
The idea here, is that while people _can_ by nature of thigns
being open source, etc - configure things at the lowest level, we
don't really _want_ them to. It should be unnecessary. Just
drop fonts in one place, and run.
Linux on the desktop needs to be simplified greatly if it is
going to be a contender against Microsoft.
>> I'm sorry to hear that you're frustrated. If given the choice
>> between using 1985 font technology for another 5-10 years, or
>> biting one's lip and migrating to new technology, I think most
>> people would take the latter. Once all applications are modified
>> to use the new technology, then dual font configuraiton will no
>> longer be needed. But until that point is reached, configuring
>> fonts in 2 places is a requirement. IMHO, the benefit is very
>> very much worth the slight inconvenience. Red Hat just happens
>> to be the first to boldly use this innovative new font
>> technology. And we do so, with many great thanks to Keith
>> Packard.
>
>I'm sorry I seem to have given off some vibe that I'm one of these old gray
>beard types who shun anything that you don't have to load off of 80 floppies.
>I'm not. In fact, I'm the guy getting people to replace their desktops with
>Linux boxes, and to log into Linux servers from the SunRays instead of Sun
>boxes. I'm the guy getting people to switch from Pine, elm and exmh to
>Evolution or KMail, and from Netscape to Galeon. I take a good deal of heat
>for this at times, and have felt what your words describe above. I'm not
>knocking 'new'. I just think it appropriate to document this type of change
>a bit better for people who have been using the 'same old same old' for so
>long - to make it less of a shock to the system.
And I agree. That is why we documented the new enhancement in
the RELEASE-NOTES. We can't force people to read them
unfortunately.
--
Mike A. Harris ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer
XFree86 maintainer
Red Hat Inc.
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