Introduction
This is just a note-taking about how fixed the long standing font issue about Debian Graphical Installer for up-coming trixie ready.
Recently, this issue had been resolved by Cyril Brulebois. Thanks!
What is the problem?
Because of Han unification, wrong font typefaces are rendered by default when you choose Japanese language using Graphical Debian installer.
This issue will not be solved during using DroidSansFallback.ttf continuously for Japanese.
Thus, it means that we need to switch font itself which contains Japanese typeface to fix this issue.
If you wan to know about how Han Unification is harmful in this context, See
What causes this problem?
In short, fonts-android (DroidSansFallback.ttf) had been used for CJK, especially for Japanese.
Since Debian 9 (stretch), fonts-android was adopted for CJK fonts by default. Thus this issue was not resolved in Debian 9, Debian 10, Debian 11 and Debian 12 release cycle!
What is the impact about this issue?
For sadly, Japanese native speakers can recognize such a unexpectedly rendered "Wrong" glyph, so it is not hard to continue Debian installation process.
Even if there is no problem with the installer's functionality, it gives a terrible user experience for newbie.
For example, how can you trust an installer which contains full of typos? It is similar situation for Japanese users.
How Debian Graphical Installer was fixed?
In short, newly fonts-motoya-l-cedar-udeb was bundled for Japanese,
and changed to switch that font via gtk-set-font command.
It was difficult that what is the best font to deal font file size and visibility. Typically Japanese font file occupies extra a few MB.
Luckily, some space was back for Installer, it was not seen as a problem (I guess).
As a bonus, we tried to investigate a possibility of font compression mechanism for Installer, but it was regarded as too complicated and not suitable for trixie release cycle.
Conclution
- The font issue was fixed in Debian Graphical Installer for Japanese
- As recently fixed, not officially shipped yet (NOTE Debian Installer Trixie RC1 does not contain this fix) Try daily build installer if you want.
This article was written with Ultimate Hacking Keyboard 60 v2 with Rizer 60 (New my gear!).
