[RFC] Better font filetype and metadata file detection for xfs initscript

Mike A. Harris mharris at redhat.com
Thu Oct 9 11:13:41 UTC 2003


On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:

>> if it's done via macros, an official document, or a reference spec file
>> everyone is supposed to copy (like bitstream-vera was going to be in
>> fedora.us before the merge), but I'm dead tired of not having two font
>> package behaving the same way because they all use their own secret
>> recipes.
>
>(Another solution of course being "install all fonts un
>/usr/share/fonts", the system will take care of fonts.* generation and
>directory registration at next xfs restart)

As it stands right now, when a Red Hat font package is installed, 
chkfontpath is called to add it to the xfs font path.  The last 
thing chkfontpath does, is check and see if xfs is currently 
running, and if it is, it sends a SIGUSR1 to the xfs process, 
which causes xfs to reread it's config file.  This will add fonts 
to be useable right away, however there are some cases in which 
it will not work if I understand correctly, however it is a 
convenience nonetheless.  For fontconfig, the fonts are useable 
immediately in some applications I believe, while other apps 
require a restart.

>However this will break rpm -e unless the xfs service also cleans ups
>dangling indexes/registered directories after font removal.

xfs is not signalled to reread it's config file upon font 
uninstallation, however IIRC, that causes problems anyway 
although I don't remember what they are.  I believe it has 
something to do with glyph caching or somesuch.  Maybe Owen 
remembers more than I do... it's even possible the problems I 
seem to recall don't exist anymore...


-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat





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