This package ships a large number of OpenType fonts that are not
available elsewhere in Debian.  The one I am particularly interested in
is Source Code Pro, which I use for my terminal and editor, but there
are others as well.

However, installing this packages doesn't expose those fonts to
fontconfig, so one has to symlink the relevant directories into
`~/.fonts` and then rebuild the fontconfig cache.  This is inconvenient
and has to be done on a per-user basis, which is not great for
multi-user systems.

Would it be possible to ship a fontconfig file that includes the
appropriate directories for use by fontconfig?  I think that might be as
simple as something like the below:
----
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<!-- Scan for OpenType fonts -->
 <dir>/usr/share/texmf/fonts/opentype/adobe/sourcecodepro</dir>
 <dir>/usr/share/texmf/fonts/opentype/adobe/sourcesanspro</dir>
 <dir>/usr/share/texmf/fonts/opentype/adobe/sourceserifpro</dir>
 <!-- other relevant directories here. -->
</fontconfig>
----

plus the appropriate changes to the maintainer scripts.

Of course, if you wish to move these files into a separate package
instead, that would be even better (because then I don't have to install
a lot of TeXLive on work systems, where I don't tend to write a lot of
TeX), but I'm not picky and would be happy with the simpler, less
invasive solution as well.  There may be other solutions that you
prefer, and I'm open to hearing them.

On 22.11.24 brian m. carlson (sandals@crustytoothpaste.net) wrote:

Hi,

This is one of the bug reports, which will probaly sit in the DBTS
forever, as I don't have the time to care about. I would rather see
the fonts in a separate package (which provides the fontconfig
integration) or you send me a diff, I just have the upload.

Hilmar

Hi Brian,

Yes, this is on purpose.
We cannot expose simply all fonts by adding
	/usr/share/texmf/fonts/opentype
since history has shown that some fonts did break font setups badly.

Activating a few hundreds/thousands of fonts on w whimp is not a good
idea.

That leaves the question to which fonts should be selected for
activation and which not.

As Hilmar said, many fonts are already packaged in separate font
packages and activated, and we only link the fonts to the font packages.
This is the best approach.

For the rest, the approach via ~/.fonts, or like I am doing, putting
it into
	/etc/fonts/local.conf
is the best approach.

Best regards

Norbert