[Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#983291: Default font: Transition from DejaVu to Noto

[dr. ir. Tjeerd J. Pinkert]

Dear Fabian, List,

thanks for packaging fonts for Debian.

On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 13:28:36 +0200 Fabian Greffrath <fabian at debian.org> 
wrote:
> > If I recall it correctly, the primary suggestion in that bug report
> > is to split fonts-noto-core into an LCG and an "other" package.
> 
> I have created a MR to implement this:
> 
> https://salsa.debian.org/fonts-team/fonts-noto/-/merge_requests/1
> 
>  - Fabian

I was also struggling with the extensive font list issue. I managed to 
deinstall the font today to get rid of the annoyance. Of course, I am 
now also rid of a set of type faces.

Why are there so many language specific font files in the package? I'm 
not the most knowledgeable person in this field, but, is it not the idea 
of a unicode font to be capable to include all languages in a single 
font file for one font style / typeface? Then the list of Noto fonts 
would slink to only the various styles available (20 or so?).

- Are there technical boundaries that prevent this other than file size?
- Would this be something to discuss with upstream how to tackle this?

I would guess not only Debian faces these problems with Noto?

Another thought would be to split the package out super fine grained, 
and make the font installation depend on the language selection of the 
users? That would be a lot of work though. I guess there is not an easy 
solution, but people are struggling with this font as can be seen by the 
various bug reports mentioned in this thread. Especially the fact that a 
huge list of fonts is generated by the way the files are structured.

The issue will become harder when more software starts to depend on 
Noto, I had both cinnamon and texlive dependencies. Even only the noto 
core was too much for my taste...

Best regards,


Tjeerd Pinkert