this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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A new version of fontconfig release recently with the added option to disable bitmap fonts. If you're using a rolling release distro, this might break bitmap fonts for you. It definitely does on Arch (and likely Arch-based distros) because they opted to disable them by default for some reason (AFAICT upstream gives the choice but does not recommend one way or the other).

This'll cause fontconfig to skip bitmap fonts, your apps won't be able to access them.

To fix it, you need to configure fontconfig to not ignore bitmap fonts. There are a number of ways to do that.

I'd recommend a user-level fontconfig file. Create $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fontconfig/fonts.conf with below contents and you get your bitmap fonts back. This negates the file in /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps-except-emoji.conf. This is the first time I'm configuring fontconfig so there may be a better way ¯_(ツ)_/¯

This should've definitely been news imo especially because this is not the default behavior of upstream. I shouldn't have to read fontconfig PRs to figure out why my fonts broke, even on Arch.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "urn:fontconfig:fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <description>Accept bitmap fonts</description>
  <!-- Accept bitmap fonts -->
  <selectfont>
    <acceptfont>
      <pattern>
        <patelt name="outline"><bool>false</bool></patelt>
        <patelt name="scalable"><bool>false</bool></patelt>
      </pattern>
    </acceptfont>
  </selectfont>
</fontconfig>
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[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This just became so ironic...

In case you missed it
it's a bitmap font repo readme where Windows installation instructions are just "install Arch")

[–] slackness@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not seeing where it says install arch

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Windows

Grab CozetteVector.ttf. If you want to get the bitmap versions to work, follow the instructions from here.

Click the link

[–] slackness@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

Aah my web client wasn't showing any links in your original message.

[–] nfms@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Font_configuration#Disable_bitmap_fonts
Check out this section. You can enable the fonts you want to have bitmap enabled

[–] slackness@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

good source in case anyones interested. I'm fine with them generally being available.