[Debian-in-workers] Question about Sans/Serif aliases

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007, Arne Goetje wrote:

> Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
>> My suggestion:-
>>
>> 1. One ``-core'' package with all fonts.
>> 2. One ``-extras'' META PACKAGE depending on  all of languages in the
>>    below.
>> 3. Several ``ttf-<language>-extra-fonts'' package for each language.
>
> sounds reasonable.
>
>> > Do Indian users usually install all Indic fonts, or only those for the
>> > language they speak?
>>
>> Mostly, I expect that users will install only fonts for the languages
>> they read. One or two, at the maximum.
>
> So, would a -core package with one font for each language be accepted?
>

It's not too reliable but fwiw, here is the Debian popularity contest 
rankings for the existing packages.  (http://popcon.debian.org/)

#<name> is the package name;
#<inst> is the number of people who installed this package;
name                            inst 
ttf-tamil-fonts                  660
ttf-devanagari-fonts             539
ttf-bengali-fonts                500
ttf-gujarati-fonts               479
ttf-kannada-fonts                473
ttf-telugu-fonts                 470
ttf-punjabi-fonts                469
ttf-malayalam-fonts              468
ttf-oriya-fonts                  457
ttf-indic-fonts                  417

The data suggests users mostly just install the packages for the languages 
they are interested in and a core package would be of limited utility.

>> I have, and I expect most people on this list to have, all the
>> languages installed.
>
> Me too, obviously... :)
>

If it weren't for the fact I have to test these packages I would only have 
ttf-gujarati-fonts and ttf-devanagari-fonts installed.

>> > Otherwise I would need a list of preferred fonts for each script in
>> > order to change the package in Ubuntu first.
>>
>> Ok. The flame war is on. You started it.
>
> I submitted the currently preferred fontlist (according to the
> fontconfig files) in my first email.
>

Please use the Debian BTS for this and patches etc. so things don't get 
lost.

> So, to throw something in the ring, I suggest the following fonts:
> Bengali: MuktiNarrow
> Devanagari: lohit_hi
> Gujarati: lohit_gu
> Kannada: Malige-n
> Malayalam: MalOtf
> Oriya: utkal
> Punjabi: lohit-pa
> Tamil: lohit-ta
> Telugu: Venama
>
> All of these fonts are actually unmodulated ones (sans serif) and should
> fit with DejaVu Sans being the system default.
>

To tell you the truth I don't know why the font designers even bother to 
include latin glyphs.  Perhaps we should just strip them all out?

>
> Or would it be sufficient to use the ttf-freefonts as core fonts and not
> touch the ttf-indic-fonts package, as ttf-freefonts seems to cover all
> indic scripts. Has anyone found issues with those fonts?

I prefer this idea to lots of extra packages.  AFAIK freefonts doesn't 
completely cover all Indic ranges but the maintainer has this as a goal. 
And it does already cover the most popular scripts.  Hopefully with some 
concerted effort we can fill in any gaps quickly.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at debian.org>
La Salle Debain - http://www.braincells.com/debian/