[Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#983291: fonts-noto-core: Excessive fonts bundles in fonts-noto-core make desired font selection painful

[Dan Dascalescu]

Package: fonts-noto-core
Version: 20200323-1build1~ubuntu20.04.1
Severity: important

After gathering feedback from several distros and user forums,
I would like to make a suggestion for the fonts-noto package that I
believe will save a significant amount of time for the vast majority of
users, and will provide backwards compatibility with the status quo.

The issue is that the fonts-noto-core package bundles together a very
large number (over 190[1]) of exotic fonts. While the aim of covering
all Unicode scripts (65+) means the package covers our bases for
individual users on every locale imaginable, it also presents a
challenge for font selectors in applications, and for *all* users using
them.

Some applications freeze while trying to render so many fonts.[2]

But more importantly, a typical user is likely to only use *one* of these
language fonts, if any (Ubuntu Desktop statistics show that the majority
of users use the English locale.[3]) Every time a user needs to select
a font, the font selector is cluttered by ~190 fonts they do not need.[4]
Even only 5 seconds wasted scrolling through this list of unnecessary
fonts, and only 1 font selection per day, amounts to several tens of
thousands of person-hours wasted each day, when scaled to the entire
user base.[5]

Uninstalling the fonts is commonly requested[6], but far from trivial[7],
or even impossible[8].

My proposal is simple: split the package in at least two components
that can be installed and removed independently. From what I can see
in the package manifest, the following fonts might have general
applicability:

Noto Sans
Noto Sans Linear {A,B}
Noto Sans Display
Noto Sans Math
Noto Sans Symbols
Noto Sans Symbols2
Noto Serif

These would comprise one package. For simplicity, the other package can
contain all other 180+ fonts. One of them might be useful for users
in certain locales, two for a few bilingual/multilingual users who might
need more than one script, and more than two, only for very specialized
cases (language researchers?).

The meta package can still pull in all dependencies, but this will allow
the vast majority of users to easily uninstall the fonts they don't need.

Note that while I am a software engineer, I am not familiar with
Linux development, so please excuse any potential naivete when it
comes to the arcane details of Debian packaging. I do believe that,
conceptually, the solution I've proposed above makes sense, and I trust
that the ingenuity of Debian maintainers will make its implementation
possible.


[1]: https://packages.debian.org/sid/fonts-noto-core
[2]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/pinta/+bug/1916373
[3]: https://ubuntu.com/desktop/statistics
[4]:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1140030/how-to-disable-unused-asiatic-fonts
[5]:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170717075850/https://insights.ubuntu.com/about/
[6]: https://askubuntu.com/questions/820746/remove-unused-fonts
[7]:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/214950/how-can-i-remove-fonts-that-i-never-use-from-libreoffice-and-linux-in-general
[8]: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=433215


-- Package-specific info:
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
|
Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name               Version           Architecture Description
+++-==================-=================-============-=====================================================
ii  fontconfig         2.13.1-2ubuntu3   amd64        generic font
configuration library - support binaries
ii  libfreetype6:amd64 2.10.1-2ubuntu0.1 amd64        FreeType 2 font
engine, shared library files
ii  libxft2:amd64      2.3.3-0ubuntu1    amd64        FreeType-based font
drawing library for X

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
  APT prefers focal-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'focal-updates'), (500, 'focal-security'), (500,
'focal-proposed'), (500, 'focal')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

-- no debconf information
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-fonts-devel/attachments/20210221/1cbfb86a/attachment.htm>