Bug#998280: Please switch the dependency from ttf-bitstream-vera to fonts-dejavu-core

[Amr Ibrahim]

Hi Ross,

Am Donnerstag, dem 27.01.2022 um 21:05 -0800 schrieb Ross Vandegrift:
> Is ttf-bitstream-vera going away?

No, ttf-bitstream-vera is not going away because there are still many
packages that depend on it.

The real issue of the Bitstream Vera font is that when it's installed,
it takes precedence over the DejaVu font and becomes the default serif,
sans-serif and monospace font on the system, and that's fontconfig's
responsibility. That causes some issues displaying some characters,
which are not supported by Bitstream Vera, in addition to being uglier
than DejaVu.

Upstream fontconfig fixed that by completely removing Bitstream Vera
from 60-latin.conf:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/merge_requests/99

But that fix has not reached Debian yet because fontconfig has not seen
real maintainer-ship for over a year now:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=961386

So the alternative solution is, if feasible, to drop the dependency on
ttf-bitstream-vera. If not feasible, then we'll just have to wait until
fontconfig is fixed in Debian.

Best,
Amr