Re: OSFONTDIR kills gui fonts.

[john Culleton <John@wexfordpress.com>]

On Fri, 26 Jul 2013 21:59:28 -0400
john Culleton <John@wexfordpress.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 26 Jul 2013 22:38:10 +0200
> Philipp Gesang <Philipp.Gesang@alumni.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
> 
> > Hi John!
> > 
> > ···<date: 2013-07-26, Friday>···<from: john Culleton>···
> > 
> > > I am tryihg to follow the wiki on "Fonts in Luatex." It suggests
> > > the following statement for Linux systems:
> > > 
> > > export OSFONTDIR="/usr/local/share/fonts;$HOME/.fonts"
> > > 
> > > But I store my fonts in /usr/share/fonts so I used:
> > > 
> > > export OSFONTDIR="/usr/share/fonts"
> > > 
> > > The net effect of this statement was to wipe out all my text fonts
> > > used with XFCE4 or KDE, at least when I use my regular user
> > > signon.  I examined my /etc/profile, $HOME/.profile, @HOME/.bashrc
> > > files and deleted or commented out all references to OSFONTDIR. I
> > > still have no gui fonts. 
> > 
> > Can you clarify what you mean by “wipe out”? Were the font files
> > deleted? Are other kinds of fonts (e.g. bitmap/pfb) still
> > working?
> > 
> > > If anyone has any suggestions on how I can revive my gui fonts
> > > that would be welcome. Only my regular user signon is affected,
> > > But I really want to know what kind of OSFONTDIR statement I can
> > > use that won't wipe out my gui fonts. 
> > 
> > OSFONTDIR is a tex specific (kpathsea and Context) variable that
> > I don’t think is used by the system (fontconfig, desktop
> > environment). While you were fiddling with font paths, is it
> > possible that you accidentally modified something else, like
> > ~/.config/fontconfig or /etc/fonts/* ?
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > Philipp
> 
> When signed on as my usual username and I fire up the gui I get
> squares instead of characters. It works OK if I sign on as an
> alternate user or root. 
> 
> I'll try the sudo fc-cache -fv route and see what happens.
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My solution to the missing or miscalled gui fonts is to reestablish
Slackware Linux 14 on a new partition and copy pertinent stuff over. 
Everything is OK so far. I used texlive 2013 since it is simpler to
setup and use then stand alone context. 

My solution to the original problem was suggested in part by a reply
on comp.text.tex newsgroup. Basically I gave up on trying to cajole 
context/luatex to use the fonts I have in /usr/share/fonts/OTF.
Instead I copied the ones I need for this project into
texmf-local/fonts. And I didn't use any subdirectory structure.  

Having been burned once I did not use OSFONTDIR at all. Instead I used
these methods:
context --generate
mtxrun--script fonts --reload
mtxrun --script fonts --list --all --pattern=Minion*
and the same except for my sanserif choice Myriad

Now I am in business. 

John Culleton
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