From Fedora Project Wiki


Default Fonts To Noto

Summary

Changes the default fonts to Google Noto Fonts

Owner

  • Name: Akira TAGOH
  • Email: tagoh@redhat.com
  • Release notes owner:

Current status

  • Targeted release: Fedora 30
  • Last updated: 2019-01-07
  • Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

This proposal is to change the default fonts to Google Noto and provide unified looks and experience across languages. There are too many languages affecting by this change. it is quite hard to mention everything here so please take a look at the another table for comparison between f29 and this plan: https://tagoh.fedorapeople.org/fonts/diff/29-noto-vf.html

and rendering sample is also available here: https://tagoh.fedorapeople.org/fonts/noto/webfont.html

The size estimation for before-and-after and details are here:

  • Overall: 2.4MiB decreased
  • sans-serif
    • 5.0MiB decreased (+10.8MiB by 28 packages added, -15.8MiB by 18 packages removed)
      • added: google-noto-sans-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-ethiopic-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-arabic-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-armenian-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-bengali-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-tifinagh-fonts google-noto-sans-devanagari-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-myanmar-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-cherokee-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-thaana-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-tibetan-fonts google-noto-sans-georgian-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-gujarati-fonts google-noto-sans-hebrew-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-canadian-aboriginal-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-kannada-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-khmer-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-lao-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-malayalam-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-yi-fonts google-noto-sans-nko-fonts google-noto-sans-oriya-fonts google-noto-sans-gurmukhi-fonts google-noto-sans-syriac-eastern-fonts google-noto-sans-tamil-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-telugu-fonts google-noto-sans-thai-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-mongolian-fonts
      • removed: dejavu-sans-fonts lohit-assamese-fonts lohit-bengali-fonts gnu-free-sans-fonts lohit-devanagari-fonts sil-padauk-fonts jomolhari-fonts lohit-gujarati-fonts lohit-kannada-fonts khmeros-base-fonts smc-meera-fonts sil-nuosu-fonts lohit-odia-fonts lohit-gurmukhi-fonts lohit-tamil-fonts lohit-telugu-fonts thai-scalable-waree-fonts paktype-naskh-basic-fonts
  • serif
    • 1.8MiB increased (+11.5MiB by 19 packages added, -9.7MiB by 3 packages removed)
      • added: google-noto-serif-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-ethiopic-vf-fonts google-noto-nastaliq-urdu-fonts google-noto-serif-armenian-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-bengali-fonts google-noto-serif-devanagari-fonts google-noto-serif-myanmar-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-tibetan-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-gujarati-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-hebrew-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-kannada-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-khmer-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-lao-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-malayalam-fonts google-noto-serif-gurmukhi-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-sinhala-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-tamil-slanted-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-telugu-fonts google-noto-serif-thai-vf-fonts
      • removed: gnu-free-serif-fonts dejavu-serif-fonts sil-abyssinica-fonts
  • monospace
    • 0.8MiB increased (+1.9MiB by 2 packages added, -1.1MiB by 2 packages removed)
      • added: google-noto-sans-mono-vf-fonts google-noto-sans-syriac-fonts
      • removed: gnu-free-sans-mono-fonts dejavu-sans-mono-fonts


Benefit to Fedora

Noto fonts are actively maintained and have better quality. Users can also have better more consistent experience by using Noto across languages.

Scope

  • Proposal owners:
    • Update comps to change the default in @fonts group.
    • Update the priority of fontconfig config in google-noto-fonts package and dejavu-fonts
    • ...
  • Other developers:
    • fontconfig to have different config for hinted/unhinted.
  • Policies and guidelines: NO
  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

Upgrading to f30 for existing users should be unaffected. they will still have DejaVu and so for their default fonts. they can sync up with this change by installing the above list of google-noto-* font packages.


How To Test

Check if the default fonts are same to what the above link of the comparison table describes. try on your locale:

  1. fc-match sans-serif
  2. fc-match serif
  3. fc-match monospace

User Experience

Dependencies

N/A

Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) Revert all of changes made in packages and comps
  • Contingency deadline: Beta freeze
  • Blocks release? No

Documentation

Release Notes