Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

linux_user · 2020-02-15 13:38:11

After my troublesome attempt to Bunsenify Debian buster on my desktop, I decided to try the same in my Thinkpad X230. The graphic drivers seemed simpler, and it was. I installed bare minimum Buster with just the tty prompt. Then, without installing any particular DE, I installed lightdm and openbox to start with the GUI followed by Conky, tint2 and other packages required. I've also changed the openbox config files to resemble BL. Few issues on which I need some opinion -

In both Buster and BL, the default font is set as Sans, however both Bunsenlabs and Buster show different Sans font for its basic windows like tint2 clock, calendar, left menus in obconf, thunar, notifications, etc. You can find the screenshots hosted here. I believe that Buster is using Dejavu Sans. How do I find it out and change it if required?

Secondly, Dejavu Sans rendered in Firefox is good, I love it. It's only the fonts rendered in the OS windows that are sub par. Font hinting and anti-aliasing are enabled in lxappearance. If I don't want to change the font but only improve them to look better like browser renders, what can I do?

There is another font issue, something that I presume to have risen after the install of playonlinux. Libreoffice and mp3tag runusing wine is rendering a very old-fashioned, thin and hardly legible font for menus and windows. I have attached the screenshot of the same in the previous link as well.

Executables from ~/bin are available in the terminal, but not in dmenu and gmrum. What could be the reason? I had copied the gmrun and dmenu conf files from BL and pasted them in the respective paths in Buster.

reboot and shutdown require sudo privileges in Buster. According to damo, policykit-1 and/or policykit-1-gnome is sufficient. My machine has both packages and also has /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1 & in autostart. I just can't shutdown or reboot without sudo.

Except for such slight issues, Bunsenifying has been fun. Any help to fix the above would be highly appreciated.

Last edited by linux_user (2020-02-16 08:01:24)

ohnonot · 2020-02-15 14:10:47

re font issues:
Sans is probably substituted with whatever the system deems most suitable.
Try

fc-match Sans

and have a look in /etc/fonts/conf.d.
Also look at ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf.
This is what mine looks like:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>

<!-- CAREFUL!
USER CONFIGURATION PRIORITY RAISED FROM 50- TO 21- 
IN /etc/fonts/conf.d -->

<!-- Generic name aliasing -->
<alias>
	<family>sans</family>
	<prefer>
		<family>IBM Plex Sans Condensed</family>
	</prefer>
</alias>
<alias>
	<family>sans-serif</family>
	<prefer>
		<family>IBM Plex Sans Condensed</family>
	</prefer>
</alias>
<alias>
	<family>serif</family>
	<prefer>
		<family>IBM Plex Serif</family>
	</prefer>
</alias>
<alias binding="same">
	<family>monospace</family>
	<accept>
		<family>IBM Plex Mono</family>
		<family>xos4 Terminus</family>
		<family>Terminus</family>
		<family>Monaco</family>
		<family>Andale Mono</family>
	</accept>
</alias>

<!-- Bitstream Charter is a non true type font, and will look bad. This
replaces it with whatever is the default sans-serif font -->
<match target="pattern">
	<test name="family" qual="any">
		<string>Bitstream Charter</string>
	</test>
	<edit mode="assign" name="family" binding="same">
		<string>sans-serif</string>
	</edit>
</match>

<!-- Helvetica is a non true type font, and will look bad. This
replaces it with whatever is the default sans-serif font -->
<match target="pattern">
	<test name="family" qual="any">
		<string>Helvetica</string>
	</test>
	<edit mode="assign" name="family">
		<string>sans-serif</string>
	</edit>
</match>

<match target="font">
 <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
  <const>rgb</const>
 </edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
 <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
 <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
  <const>hintslight</const>
 </edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
 <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
 <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
   <const>lcddefault</const>
 </edit>
</match>

<match target="font">
 <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
  <bool>false</bool>
 </edit>
</match>

<!--
Interesting! This one overrides EVERYTHING
<match target="pattern">
    <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="strong">
        <string>Comic Sans MS</string>
    </edit>
</match>
-->

</fontconfig>

linux_user · 2020-02-15 16:12:44

^ My hunch was right.

toor@X230:~$ fc-match Sans
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"

I guess there are some issues with font rendering. I search on the internet and the only thing I could find was changes to aliasing and hinting, which I already have set as suggested. One thing I noticed after posting this thread is that, changes in hinting style in lxappearance does not change. The current value is 'Full'. Changing it to slight or anything else just doesn't take effect and stays 'Full' when you reopen lxappearance.

I do not have ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf. Should I have one?

toor@X230:~$ ls /etc/fonts/conf.d/
10-hinting-slight.conf                         65-0-fonts-orya-extra.conf
10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf                     65-0-fonts-pagul.conf
11-lcdfilter-default.conf                      65-0-fonts-telu-extra.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-sans.conf           65-0-smc-meera.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-sans-mono.conf      65-0-smc-rachana.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-serif.conf          65-fonts-persian.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf               65-nonlatin.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf          66-lohit-assamese.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf              66-lohit-bengali.conf
20-unhint-small-vera.conf                      66-lohit-devanagari.conf
30-0-google-crosextra-carlito-fontconfig.conf  66-lohit-gujarati.conf
30-metric-aliases.conf                         66-lohit-gurmukhi.conf
30-opensymbol.conf                             66-lohit-kannada.conf
40-nonlatin.conf                               66-lohit-odia.conf
45-generic.conf                                66-lohit-tamil-classical.conf
45-latin.conf                                  66-lohit-tamil.conf
49-sansserif.conf                              66-lohit-telugu.conf
50-user.conf                                   67-fonts-smc-manjari.conf
51-local.conf                                  67-smc-anjalioldlipi.conf
57-dejavu-sans.conf                            67-smc-chilanka.conf
57-dejavu-sans-mono.conf                       67-smc-dyuthi.conf
57-dejavu-serif.conf                           67-smc-karumbi.conf
58-dejavu-lgc-sans.conf                        67-smc-keraleeyam.conf
58-dejavu-lgc-sans-mono.conf                   67-smc-raghumalayalamsans.conf
58-dejavu-lgc-serif.conf                       67-smc-suruma.conf
59-lohit-devanagari.conf                       67-smc-uroob.conf
60-generic.conf                                69-unifont.conf
60-latin.conf                                  70-no-bitmaps.conf
65-0-fonts-beng-extra.conf                     80-delicious.conf
65-0-fonts-deva-extra.conf                     90-fonts-linux-libertine.conf
65-0-fonts-gubbi.conf                          90-synthetic.conf
65-0-fonts-gujr-extra.conf                     README
65-0-fonts-guru-extra.conf

damo · 2020-02-15 16:45:58

Fonts: Scripts, Tutorials & Tips > Setting monospace, serif & sans-serif default fonts

~/bin: is it in your $PATH environment variable?

:~ $ echo $PATH
/home/damo/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

linux_user · 2020-02-15 17:23:48

damo wrote:

Fonts: Scripts, Tutorials & Tips > Setting monospace, serif & sans-serif default fonts

Again, confirmed that it's Dejavu-*

[code]
toor@X230:~$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

[/code]
toor@X230:~$ for i in monospace serif sans-serif; do fc-match $i; done
DejaVuSansMono.ttf: "DejaVu Sans Mono" "Book"
DejaVuSerif.ttf: "DejaVu Serif" "Book"
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"

So, ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf is how we go about modifying the default fonts. Noted.

damo wrote:

is it in your $PATH environment variable?

toor@X230:~$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

I am not sure why it isn't appearing despite the following in the ~/.profile

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

Last edited by linux_user (2020-02-15 18:06:26)

damo · 2020-02-15 18:25:29

linux_user wrote:

I am not sure why it isn't appearing despite the following in the ~/.profile
# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

IIRC ~/.profile isn't sourced by lightdm. Do you have .bash_profile or .xsessionrc present, with the relevant PATH settings?

ohnonot · 2020-02-15 18:42:56

Try to get your default font fallbacks right.

FWIW, I like to use Microsoft fonts. They don't spy on you, and they're (mostly) well made. Better than Android fonts IMO.

Last edited by ohnonot (2021-07-08 09:18:08)

Martin · 2020-02-15 18:50:42

Why not install BL from scratch on your x230?

I am on a such a HW/SW combo right now. The only customizing I have done is to use i3wm instead of Openbox. I have no issues with fonts.

/Martin

linux_user · 2020-02-15 18:57:56

ohnonot wrote:

re font issues:
Also look at ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf.
This is what mine looks like:

I created one. Those settings in the end of your fonts.conf helped restore the correct rendering of Libreoffice and Wine apps.

Noto Sans is set to be the alias for Sans and now tint2, obconf and other windows look as they are in BL system. I haven't replaced the serif and mono yet. Yet to find Dejavu Serif around and Dejavu Mono seems pleasing to my eye. Anyway, thanks for the help with that part.

My only confusion at this point in with the hinting. As mentioned earlier, lxappearance is stubborn with it's 'Full' hinting even while the config shows it's 'Slight'. What could be the reason for that?

damo wrote:

IIRC ~/.profile isn't sourced by lightdm. Do you have .bash_profile or .xsessionrc present, with the relevant PATH settings?

I created ~/.bash_profile and added the following lines,

PATH=$PATH:~/bin

But the path doesn't appear in $PATH.

Also, there is this answer that says that .bash_profile will be read by bash only and not by any other shell (or a program) which makes me wonder if gmrun and dmenu will read them. Anyway, this should not be a reason for ~/bin not to appear in $ echo $PATH because my shell is bash.

Last edited by linux_user (2020-02-15 19:04:33)

linux_user · 2020-02-15 19:00:40

Martin wrote:

Why not install BL from scratch on your x230?
/Martin

Because if I do that, I won't be learning anything that I am learning now in this process.

BTW, I have BL as my primary OS.

Martin wrote:

I am on a such a HW/SW combo right now. The only customizing I have done is to use i3wm instead of Openbox. I have no issues with fonts.

The only problem is with lxappearance being stubborn with font hinting for some reason. Not that it affects the rendering much, but something I noticed.

The rest of the mess is because I was trying to explore the differences in fonts between Buster and BL - Dejavu vs Noto family - and replicate it. Moreover I guess installation of playonlinux might have changed some settings and since Buster was a bare min install, I didn't have a local font configuration (~/.config/fontconfigs/font.config). Both seems to be resolved now.

Last edited by linux_user (2020-02-15 19:12:37)

linux_user · 2020-02-15 19:16:25

ohnonot wrote:

...read these articles: https://dt.iki.fi/search?q=fontconfig

Some good reading.

ohnonot wrote:

FWIW, I like to use Microsoft fonts. They don't spy on you, and they're (mostly) well made. Better than Android fonts IMO.

Might be installing ttf-mscorefonts-installer for Libreoffice compatibility. Any better way?

damo · 2020-02-15 19:32:03

linux_user wrote:

damo wrote:
IIRC ~/.profile isn't sourced by lightdm. Do you have .bash_profile or .xsessionrc present, with the relevant PATH settings?
I created ~/.bash_profile and added the following lines,
PATH=$PATH:~/bin
But the path doesn't appear in $PATH.

BL uses .xsessionrc. This is the default from skel:

# copied, and edited, from ~/.profile
# used for graphical sessions

# the default umask is set in /etc/profile; for setting the umask
# for ssh logins, install and configure the libpam-umask package.
#umask 022

# for qt5 apps ( needs qt5-style-plugins and libqt5svg5 )
export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2

# include sbin in PATH
if [ -d "/sbin" ] ; then
    PATH="/sbin:$PATH"
fi
if [ -d "/usr/sbin" ] ; then
    PATH="/usr/sbin:$PATH"
fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d ${HOME}/bin ] ; then
    PATH="${HOME}"/bin:"${PATH}"
fi

johnraff · 2020-02-16 01:37:03

LightDM ignores ~/.profile and you have to put anything you want to apply to a graphical session in ~/.xsessionrc, as damo said (though not only on BL).

linux_user · 2020-02-16 21:47:57

Alright, I have now created ~/.xsessionrc as below.

toor@X230:~$ cat ~/.xsessionrc 
# include sbin in PATH
if [ -d "/sbin" ] ; then
    PATH="/sbin:$PATH"
fi
if [ -d "/usr/sbin" ] ; then
    PATH="/usr/sbin:$PATH"
fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d ${HOME}/bin ] ; then
    PATH="${HOME}"/bin:"${PATH}"
fi

Upon reboot, the path ~/bin is appearing in $ echo $PATH.

toor@X230:~$ echo $PATH
/home/toor/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

gmrum pulls the executables from ~/bin, however dmenu doesn't show any executables from that path. Is there a way to reset/update the dmenu listing? ~/.cache/dmenu_run isn't empty, and the output of dmenu_path is just too long to include here.

Also, any help regarding the sudo privileges for reboot and shutdown?

damo · 2020-02-16 22:55:31

linux_user wrote:

... and the output of dmenu_path is just too long to include here.

Why not paste it between [ code ] tags? It is scrollable.

Also, any help regarding the sudo privileges for reboot and shutdown?

You can allow your user to use those commands by editing sudoers:

sudo visudo

But it is better to use polkit and create a rule, as BL does. I think it is set in /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.login1.policy, but maybe someone else can confirm...

ohnonot · 2020-02-17 06:35:00

As a general rule, things in ~/.cache can be deleted and should get recreated.

Aboutyour hinting issues: it can be defined in four places in your $HOME alone:

~/.gtkrc-2.0 (*)
~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini (*)
~/.Xresources
~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf

(*) these 2 get updated by lxappearance

I'm not sure what takes precedence there, you should probably adjust all of those.

You should take a good look at how bunsenlabs does these things; if you installed the packages, what you need is probably in /etc/skel - or maybe you just create a virtual BL install to check.

linux_user · 2020-02-18 10:44:44

damo wrote:

Why not paste it between [ code ] tags? It is scrollable.

Surprisingly, it's working now after the commands $ dmenu_path and $ cat ~/.cache/dmenu_run. I have no explanation as to how and why! I am sure there has been reboots after creating the .xsessionsrc file.

damo wrote:

You can allow your user to use those commands by editing sudoers:
sudo visudo
But it is better to use polkit and create a rule, as BL does. I think it is set in /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.login1.policy, but maybe someone else can confirm...

I was changing with policykit. I compared /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.login1.policy of both Buster and Helium and the configs are the same except for some additional languages in Helium's. Also, the answer here said that the line <allow_active>yes</allow_active> will let me do what I want to do. Both configs had that line. That kept me thinking as to why wasn't it working.

I then realized that I was trying the shutdown command instead of poweroff from demu. Shutdown doesn't shutdown the system instantly and obviously there was no shutdown process initiated when tried from dmenu. I verified this by trying reboot and poweroff from dmenu. It worked! And in the terminal, shutdown works too by printing that shutdown has been scheduled for a min later. Thanks.

ohnonot wrote:

Aboutyour hinting issues: it can be defined in four places in your $HOME alone:
~/.gtkrc-2.0 (*)
~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini (*)
~/.Xresources
~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
(*) these 2 get updated by lxappearance

I have files 1, 2 and 3. There is no ~/.Xresources at the moment. The hinting was already set to 'slight' when I created ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf some time back. The 1st and 2nd files that lxappearance updates was set to 'hintfull'. I have since edited it to 'hintslight' in both of them. Lxappearance still shows hinting as Full, even if I change it. Not sure of the error.

I don't think full hinting is in effect on my machine. Just that I am a little confused as to why lxappearance is stubborn.

ohnonot wrote:

You should take a good look at how bunsenlabs does these things; if you installed the packages, what you need is probably in /etc/skel - or maybe you just create a virtual BL install to check.

Yes, I am in the process of that. Not just for fonts, but for other configurations too.

damo · 2020-02-18 13:41:01

If you want immediate shutdown:

shutdown -h now

linux_user · 2020-02-18 14:00:14

I generally do just,

shutdown now

in the terminal. Just that this isn't there as an executable in dmenu. Perhaps write and script and put it in the $PATH. poweroff seems fine, so no complaints.

As an update to this thread, font seems pretty fine now since the time default Sans has been replaced from Dejavu Sans to Noto Sans. Rendering is fine with the settings in fonts.conf. There are still some changes in the fonts here and there that I need to figure out, especially certain fonts in certain webpages. The stubbornness of lxappearance is still a puzzle. If it gets resolved, will update it.

For now, thanks for all those who helped. Cheers!

Last edited by linux_user (2020-02-18 14:11:19)

ohnonot · 2020-02-18 21:37:49

^ I'd recommend using 'systemctl poweroff' or 'poweroff'.

linux_user wrote:

The 1st and 2nd files that lxappearance updates was set to 'hintfull'. I have since edited it to 'hintslight' in both of them. Lxappearance still shows hinting as Full, even if I change it. Not sure of the error.

You probably have to close down lxappearance before you edit those files.
For me it works as expected, both on ArchLinux and on BL Helium.

#1 2020-02-15 13:38:11

Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#2 2020-02-15 14:10:47

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#3 2020-02-15 16:12:44

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#4 2020-02-15 16:45:58

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#5 2020-02-15 17:23:48

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#6 2020-02-15 18:25:29

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#7 2020-02-15 18:42:56

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#8 2020-02-15 18:50:42

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#9 2020-02-15 18:57:56

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#10 2020-02-15 19:00:40

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#11 2020-02-15 19:16:25

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#12 2020-02-15 19:32:03

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#13 2020-02-16 01:37:03

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#14 2020-02-16 21:47:57

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#15 2020-02-16 22:55:31

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#16 2020-02-17 06:35:00

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#17 2020-02-18 10:44:44

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#18 2020-02-18 13:41:01

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#19 2020-02-18 14:00:14

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

#20 2020-02-18 21:37:49

Re: Bunsenifying Debian Buster in a Thinkpad X230

Board footer