[SOLVED] 13.1 fonts changed after gslapt update

[Dennola4]

Running SalixOS 13.1.....

update notifier popped up on my tray, as usual I just clicked ok, several things were updated.... can't remember what exactly, but system stuff. Anyway, now my fonts are changed in a way that is terrible. I noticed it first in Thunar, the default monospace was replaced with some serif font. Then I opened Opera and several of the fonts there are changed.

I know it was the update because I reverted to a pre-update backup and the fonts went back to normal. The notifier popped up, I accepted the updates, and again.... crappy fonts.

Help please.

Thanks.

[gapan]

What fonts? Where?

Since you can roll back to a previous version, find out which package did it by upgrading them one by one.

[gapan]

OK, I see it now. I upgraded a 13.0 system and the fonts changed after a reboot. Now the fonts are the same as in 13.37. What changed these was an update to the freetype package, issued by slackware. This was a necessary upgrade as far as I can tell due to security issues. Here's the excerpt from the slackware changelog:

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patches/packages/freetype-2.4.8-i486-1_slack13.1.txz:  Upgraded.
  Some vulnerabilities in handling CID-keyed PostScript fonts have
  been fixed.
  For more information, see:
    http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2011-3439
  (* Security fix *)

BTW, I actually prefer the fonts the way they are in 13.37.

[Dennola4]

I see.

Perhaps I shouldn't say that they are "crappy" and "terrible"; it's just that I was quite happy with them as they were. But you seem to be saying that the update is a security fix from Slackware, they are aware that the fonts might necessarily change, and basically that's the end of the story unless I decide to go into both Thunar and Opera and set font preferences which are closer to the pre-update choices.

Is this correct?

[gapan]

I don't think you can do anything to change the fonts back to how they were before the update, short of downgrading the freetype package and sticking with the old version. And I would certainly advise against that.

[Dennola4]

Okey doke.

I'll mark this problem solved then. Thanks as always, Gapan.

[Andyun]

Try this:
From root:

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ln -s ../conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

and reboot the computer.
If so do not like it, you can return:

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rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-autohint.conf

More details here: http://mirror.yandex.ru/slackware/slack ... _HINTS.TXT

[Dennola4]

Thanks Andyun....

I have been using the newer font scheme and gotten used to it, so I no longer find it *terrible*, but honestly the old font scheme seems cleaner and less distracting to my eyes. Just a matter of personal taste.

Thanks again both to you and Gapan.

[Andyun]

In Slackware 13.37 in Freetype is disabled subpixel rendering setup. To fix this, download all from
http://mirror.yandex.ru/slackware/slack ... /freetype/ or
http://mirror.yandex.ru/slackware/slack ... /freetype/ or
http://mirror.yandex.ru/slackware/slack ... /freetype/ and edit "freetype.SlackBuild": uncomment (remove the symbol "#") at beginning of the line:

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zcat $CWD/freetype.subpixel.rendering.diff.gz | patch -p1 --verbose || exit 1

You can still immediately add that manually does not make the link (ln -s ../conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/).
Add this:

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mkdir -p $PKG/etc/fonts/conf.d
( cd $PKG/etc/fonts/conf.d
  ln -s ../conf.avail/10-autohint.conf .
)

after lines:

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mkdir -p $PKG/usr/include
( cd $PKG/usr/include
  rm -rf freetype
  ln -sf freetype2/freetype .
)

Make the file "freetype.SlackBuild" executable and recompile the package Freetype. Open a terminal in the folder with the compiled package and run (root):

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removepkg freetype && installpkg freetype-2.4.10-i486-1.txz

Font settings (in Xfce) are done in the menu Settings -> Appearance -> Font.
For the changes to take effect, log off and log back on to the graphical environment.