21650
Comment: Davide's experimental iso image that should fix most issues except Vietnamese
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21705
Link directly to the iso image
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'''Davide Viti has created [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00915.html an iso image] and made [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00916.html sceenshots for all supported languages]. This iso image should fix all display issues [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00915.html except for Vietnamese] (due to missing glyphs in freefont). RTL languages' testers shall ignore the fact that in some cases the text is not alligned to the right edge (this is due to the usage of an old library but that will be changed as soon as possible).''' | '''Davide Viti [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00915.html has created] [http://www.webalice.it/zinosat/g-i/mini_20060223.iso an iso image] and made [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00916.html sceenshots for all supported languages]. This iso image should fix all display issues [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00915.html except for Vietnamese] (due to missing glyphs in freefont). RTL languages' testers shall ignore the fact that in some cases the text is not alligned to the right edge (this is due to the usage of an old library but that will be changed as soon as possible).''' |
Intro
One of the main advantages of the graphical version of the installer is that it can support languages that use combining characters. We are currently using mainly TTF fonts, with the exception of Japanese and Chinese.
[http://fontconfig.org/wiki/ Fontconfig] is used for font management. fc-cache files are automatically generated at startup.
The following issues are open with respect to fonts:
- Not all fonts needed for the graphical installer have yet been packaged into udebs (needed for inclusion in the official Etch release).
- Translators should check if their languages are displayed correctly and check for missing characters. Special attention should be given to Indic languages, Arabic and Hebrew. Help from translators may be needed to decide the optimal font for the installer (taking into consideration both quality and space required). Please note that the screenshots are a little outdated currently.
Text inside GTK!?TreeView widgets is left-justified for RTL languages (see [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=342239 #342239]), but that is fixed in the new DFB libs.
There are [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=341229 known problems] for Indic languages and Arabic. These need to be specified and traced. Possibly extra software is needed for correct display.
- Ideal would be to have each character we need present in only one font. The current fonts have a lot of overlap which wastes space.
- Display has to be good both when no language has yet been selected (language selection screen) and when it has.
- Possibly font configuration can be improved. It would be very nice if we could influence which font is used for a specific language.
News
Davide Viti [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00915.html has created] [http://www.webalice.it/zinosat/g-i/mini_20060223.iso an iso image] and made [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00916.html sceenshots for all supported languages]. This iso image should fix all display issues [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00915.html except for Vietnamese] (due to missing glyphs in freefont). RTL languages' testers shall ignore the fact that in some cases the text is not alligned to the right edge (this is due to the usage of an old library but that will be changed as soon as possible).
Requirements for packaging fonts
- Total amount of space used for fonts should be minimized.
- Only font files that are actually used in the installer should be included.
- Minimize overlap between fonts. It is possible to "strip" characters from a font (This is currently done in the developement versions with a fontforge script) We _really_ need to add characters as we need them, not to strip them from fonts. The fonts overlap too much - CJK fonts provide also codes for Latin scripts.
Latin scripts are provided by most fonts, but they can be fixed with some [http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/scripting.html Fontforge scripting]
Davide Viti created [http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/d-i/trunk/scripts/g-i/strip_glyphs.pe?op=file&rev=0&sc=0 a fontforge script] that will allow stripping unnecessary glyphs or glyph ranges from the fonts. If needed, one can [http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/d-i/trunk/scripts/g-i/README.strip_glyphs?op=file&rev=0&sc=0 read the usage hints].
Information on how to play around with fonts is included in ["DebianInstallerGUIBuild"].
Fonts configuration for the G-I
Infos for language codes were fetched from:
[http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/d-i/trunk/packages/localechooser/?rev=0&sc=0 localechooser]
[http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/freefont/freefont/AUTHORS?rev=1.13&view=auto AUTHORS] file included in the [http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/freefont/freefont/ freefont source package]
Latin-1
Base characters (Latin) are taken from ttf-freefont (existing udeb). This font was selected because it looks quite good, has a character set that gives good support for a lot of languages and was already packaged as an udeb.
A negative aspect is that it also has partial/limited/ugly support for other scripts/languages and it would be better to only have specialized fonts for those. This is being resolved by "stripping" all glyphs from the font which we want to take from other fonts.
We also only really need the FreeSans* variants of freefont, and not everything that is currently in the udeb. ChristianPerrier has a nearly ready patch for this.
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
ca |
Catalan |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
da |
Danish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
de |
German |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
en |
English |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
es |
Spanish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
eu |
Basque |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
fi |
Finnish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
fr |
French |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
ga |
Irish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
gl |
Gallegan |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
is |
Icelandic |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
it |
Italian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
nb |
Norwegian Bokmal |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
nl |
Dutch |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
nn |
Norwegian Nynorsk |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
pt |
Portuguese |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
pt_BR |
Portuguese (Brazil) |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
sq |
Albanian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
sv |
Swedish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
Latin-other
These are also covered by ttf-freefont.
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
bs |
Bosnian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
cs |
Czech |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
cy |
Welsh |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
eo |
Esperanto |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
et |
Estonian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
hu |
Hungarian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
id |
Indonesian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
ku |
Kurdish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
lv |
Latvian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
lt |
Lithuanian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
mg |
Malagasy |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
pl |
Polish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
ro |
Romanian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
hr |
Croatian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
se |
Sami |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
sk |
Slovakian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
sl |
Slovenian |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
tl |
Tagalog |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
tr |
Turkish |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok, dejavu looks better |
vi |
Vietnamese |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu;[http://www.vn.net/staticpages/index.php/VietUniFont-HanNomSet ?HanNomSet],[http://www.vn.net/staticpages/index.php/VietUniFont-TriChlorSet ?TriChlorSet] |
Some characters seem to be missing. See for instance the string for "Installing the base system" which is "Đang cài đặt hệ thống cơ sở"; dejavu state is unknown; the licenses for [http://www.vn.net/staticpages/index.php/VietUniFont-HanNomSet ?HanNomSet] and [http://www.vn.net/staticpages/index.php/VietUniFont-TriChlorSet ?TriChlorSet] have not been studied |
wo |
Wolof |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
Display is correct with ttf-freefont, even the "ŋ" characters; dejavu state is unknown |
xh |
Xhosa |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-dejavu |
ok; dejavu state is unknown |
Non-Latin scripts
Georgian script
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
ka |
Georgian |
none |
ttf-bpg-georgian-fonts |
translator recommends BPG Glaho, font package in NEW on 02.08.2006; currently there is no Georgian translation in D-I. [http://people.debian.org/~bubulle/ttf-freefont ttf-freefont 20060126 packaged by ChristianPerrier] also has Georgian characters |
Greek script
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
el |
Greek |
ttf-freefont |
no aprovals or disaprovals |
Hebrew script
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
he |
Hebrew |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-freefont was [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/12/msg00511.html approved by Lior Kaplan]. |
Indic family scripts
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
bn |
Bengali |
MuktiNarrow |
ttf-freefont |
ttf-freefont still has issues, while Mukti displays correctly. |
hi |
Hindi |
Gargi_1.7.ttf |
Chandas, Lohit Hindi |
All alternative fonts should be removed. There are some problems with ranges covered by multiple fonts; Stripping is necessary. |
ne |
Nepali |
Gargi_1.7.ttf |
Chandas, Lohit Hindi |
Paras pradhan recommends using Garki_1.7.ttf. There are some problems with ranges covered by multiple fonts; Stripping is necessary. |
pa_IN |
Punjabi (Gumurkhi) |
Saab |
Lohit Punjabi, AnmolUni |
Lohit Fonts are most suitable for Linux System. [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-punjabi-fonts Punjabi Fonts]; (soumyadip: well I was reading somewhere that AnmolUni was better) - this font should be (apparently) in ttf-punjabi-fonts, but is not currently (1:0.4.7) |
km |
Khmer |
none(?) |
ttf-khmeros |
The [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-khmeros ttf-khmeros] font should be used. |
ml |
Malayalam |
none(?) |
RachanaMedium.ttf ([http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-malayalam-fonts ttf-malayalam-fonts]), Racotf04.ttf |
Vivek Varghese Cherian recommends using Racotf04.ttf (not packaged yet). Current font will be dropped in favor of Racotf04 |
Resources: #indlinux IRC channel on irc.freenode.net and eventually <debian-in-workers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
For Indic languages we currently include fonts from [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-devanagari-fonts ttf-devanagari-fonts] and [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-punjabi-fonts ttf-punjabi-fonts] (both maintained by Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar@debian.org>)
- Gargi_1.7.ttf (ttf-devanagari-fonts)
- chandas1-1.ttf (ttf-devanagari-fonts)
- lohit_hi.ttf (ttf-devanagari-fonts)
- Saab.ttf (ttf-punjabi-fonts)
- lohit_pa.ttf (ttf-punjabi-fonts)
Bengali script (Brahmic family)
There was [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/12/msg00338.html a report] stating that Bengali does not look right. [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=343446 #343446] tries to analyze the problem.
Currently the installer uses Mukti Narrow, which should look right (recomended by Jamil Ahmed <itsjamil@gmail.com> and confirmed by Baishampayan Ghose <b.ghose@gnu.org.in>).
Mukti Narrow looks great, but there is some more stripping to be done (apparently) because this font is silently overridden by freefont (probably). (by silent I mean that "fc-list :lang:bn" does not list nothing other than Mukti, but the installer uses something else, anyway)
Update: #343446 confirms that ?MuktiNarrow should be used. Although freefont has support for Bengali, it seems that there are still some problems.
Devanagari script
[hi] Hindi
[ne] Nepali
Nepali uses the Devanagari script. Language is not currently supported by the Debian Installer (translations are not present).
Gurmukhi script
[pa_IN] Punjabi (Gumurkhi)
Punjabi Language is Written in Gurmukhi Script for Eastren Punjab (India).
Malayalam script
[ml] Malayalam
Malayalam has a script of his own. Vivek Varghese Cherian recommends using Racotf04.ttf. The suggestion to package it has been sent to Soumyadip Modak who maintains [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-indic-fonts ttf-indic-fonts], the source package for [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-malayalam-fonts ttf-malayalam-fonts].
Language is not currently supported by the Debian Installer (translations are not present).
South-East Asian scripts
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
km |
Khmer |
none(?) |
ttf-khmeros |
The [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-khmeros ttf-khmeros] font should be used. |
lo |
Lao |
none(?) |
none |
A TTF font named "phetsarath" has been developed by the translation team. ChristianPerrier will likely package it |
Khmer script
[km] Khmer
Language is not currently supported by the Debian Installer (translations are not present). Translation is under work and should appear soon
Lao script
[lo] Lao
Language is not currently supported by the Debian Installer (translations are not present). Translation will soon start.
Arabic scripts
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
ar |
Arabic |
ae_AlMohanad |
nazli and [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/01/msg01119.html others] |
Davide Viti has created [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00915.html an iso image] where he uses nazli for arabic, also [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/02/msg00916.html sceenshots for all supported languages] were done an published |
fa |
Persian |
? |
nazli,[http://fpf.sourceforge.net/cms/index.php Free Persian Font] and [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/01/msg01119.html others] |
[http://fpf.sourceforge.net/cms/index.php Free Persian Font]'s italic [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/01/msg01108.html looks ugly]. Tests should be done for "[http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2006/01/msg01119.html others]", if any of them are suggested by farsi speaking people |
Apparently both nazli and ae_AlMohanad should be bigger.
[ar] Arabic
Resources: #arabeyes IRC channel on irc.freenode.net
Package: [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/debian-installer/ttf-arabeyes-udeb ttf-arabeyes-udeb] (maintained by Mohammed Adnène Trojette <adn+deb@diwi.org>)
The udeb includes "ae_AlMohanad.ttf"; as an alternative we've experimented a tarball containig "ae_Tholoth.ttf". "ae_AlMohanad.ttf" is said to produce better visual results.
See:
[http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=341229 #341229] (ATM the bug is fixed, but it's safer to make sure all languages are OK before closing it), [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=342239 #342239]
Needs to be checked now that ttf-freefont has been stripped.
There is some oddity going around in G-I as Arabic was not displayed when ttf-arabeyes was added along with ttf-punjabi-fonts, ?MuktiNarrow, ja, ko and zh fonts. This problem was not present when ttf-farsiweb is added instead of ttf-arabeyes.
[fa] Persian
Glyphs are shared with Arabic; "ae_AlMohanad.ttf" seem to have problems especially with ligatures; we need to see if "ae_Tholoth.ttf" works better. Roozbeh Pournader, upstream maintainer of [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-farsiweb ttf-farsiweb] fonts, recommends using the nazli.ttf font from the [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-farsiweb ttf-farsiweb] package. He discourages the use of ae_Tholoth.ttf. [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/ttf-farsiweb ttf-farsiweb] is maintained by Clint Adams, but Arash Bijanzadeh, the Persian translation coordinator is ready to take it over as Clint wants to orphan the package. ChristianPerrier will help him in this process.
Chinese/Japanese/Korean scripts
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
ja |
Japanese |
ttf-compact-fonts(?) |
ttf-sazanami-gothic |
Kenshi and Hidetaka recommend Sazanami-Gothic. A stripped ttf is about 160KB. |
ko |
Korean |
ttf-compact-fonts |
ttf-comapct-fonts is a custom made font set based on the necessary glyphs that are encountered in D-I. The Korean fonts are taken from UmDotum; We did have report from Sunjae Park <darehanl@gmail.com> stating that the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/11/msg01409.html ?UnDotum looked right] |
|
zh_CN |
Chinese (Simplified) |
ttf-compact-fonts |
ttf-comapct-fonts is a custom made font set based on the necessary glyphs that are encountered in D-I |
|
zh_TW |
Chinese (Traditional) |
ttf-compact-fonts |
ttf-comapct-fonts is a custom made font set based on the necessary glyphs that are encountered in D-I |
For Chinese and Japanese [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/12/msg00150.html we currently use the fonts prepared by Kenshi Muto] (ttf-compact-fonts). For an overview, see [http://people.debian.org/~kmuto/d-i/cjk/cjk.html this page].
We should make sure that none of the fonts below provides glyphs for other scripts than the ones which they were introduced (currently there are latin glyphs provided by them which take up space and harm us a lot for latin scripts).
Chinese and Japanese have an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification unification problem]. Unicode defines same codepoint against different glyphs between Japanese/Chinese(/Korean, but the Korean translation does not use any glyphs from this Unified Ideographs region so Korean is free from this issue). Furthermore Chinese font face and Japanese font face are different (do you think Helvetica and NewCentury are same? :-P ). So they don't like to use them together.
For Korean we now use [http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/12/msg00150.html ttf-compact-fonts], which has stripped UnDotum.ttf from ttf-unfonts (maintained by Changwoo Ryu <cwryu@debian.org>)
We previous included complete ttfs, but these took a lot of space:
UnDotum.ttf
UnDotumBold.ttf
We did have report stating that the UnDotum looked right: http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/11/msg01409.html
Cyrillic scripts
Lang Code |
Language Name |
Current Font |
Other Fonts |
Status / Observations |
be |
Belarusian |
ttf-dejavu |
||
bg |
Bulgarian |
ttf-dejavu |
||
kk |
Kazakh |
ttf-dejavu |
||
mk |
Macedonian |
ttf-dejavu |
||
ru |
Russian |
ttf-dejavu |
||
sr |
Serbian |
ttf-dejavu |
||
uk |
Ukrainian |
ttf-dejavu |
[http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ?DejaVu fonts] is based on Bitstream Vera and their recent releases have good cyrilic coverage. The [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/source/ttf-dejavu Debian package] has been updated to version 2.1. The package now creates a udeb since version 2.1-2, using the DejaVuSans fonts. If latin glyphs are not used from this font, then they should be stripped out.