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Provide OpenType Bitmap Fonts

Summary

This proposal plans to provide some additional popular bitmap fonts in OpenType format to use with pango.

By providing some bitmap fonts from BDF/PCF format to OpenType format, applications like gnome-terminal can continue to use some bitmap fonts with the pango 1.44 package.

Owner

Current status

Detailed Description

In Fedora 31, pango has been upgraded to 1.44, and switched to use the HarfBuzz library instead of FreeType.

But HarfBuzz doesn't support bitmap fonts or Adobe Type 1 fonts. In gnome-terminal, the bitmap fonts can't be used.

In order to use the bitmap fonts with pango 1.44, we propose to provide some additional popular bitmap fonts in OpenType format by using fonttosfnt tool.

The bitmap font in OpenType format will be contained in new sub package. User can choose to install the bitmap font either in legacy format or OpenType format from different sub packages.

If install both legacy format and OpenType format fonts, sometimes it is not clear which format of the bitmap font is used. Plan to add some Conflicts line between legacy format and OpenType format font packages to avoid confusion.

We plan to provide 5-10 bitmap fonts in OpenType format in some packages. The current font candidates are bitmap-lucida-typewriter-fonts, terminus-fonts and ucs-miscfixed-font.

Benefit to Fedora

Some popular bitmap fonts are used by many users.

After providing the bitmap fonts in OpenType format, users can continue to use the bitmap fonts in gnome-terminal, etc.

Scope

  • Proposal owners:
    • Convert the following bitmap fonts packages to OpenType format and make them sub-packaged.
      • bitmap-lucida-typewriter-fonts
      • terminus-fonts
      • ucs-miscfixed-font
  • Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Release engineering: Releng issue 9130 (a check of an impact with Release Engineering is needed)
  • Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

N/A (not a System Wide Change)


How To Test

Please install the terminus-fonts package.

Check if the "Terminus Regular" fonts is available in gnome-terminal, and use "Terminus Regular" fonts in gnome-terminal.

User Experience

After converting the bitmap fonts, users will be able to use the popular bitmap fonts again with pango 1.44 in gnome-terminal, etc.

The OpenType bitmap fonts should have the similar shape for each glyph, compared with the original bitmap fonts.

Dependencies

N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Blocks product? product

Documentation

N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Release Notes

In Fedora 32, we provide bitmap fonts with modern font format (OpenType Bitmap Font) to use with gnome-terminal and other applications which uses pango for font rendering.

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