Package: fontconfig Version: 2.12.3-0.1 Severity: normal Dear Maintainer,
When I upgraded fontconfig, fontconfig-config, libfontconfig1 (both amd64 and i386), and libfontconfig1-dev from version 2.11.0-6.7+b1 to version 2.12.3-0.1, as part of a routine dist-upgrade against testing, I was unpleasantly surprised to see the fonts in some of my open applications (most notably Firefox and Thunderbird) change appearance significantly. Downgrading back to 2.11.0-6.7+b1 restored the previous font appearance. This bug report was written after that downgrade; I have modified the version tag by hand to reflect the affected version. I do not know what the nature of the underlying change that causes this behavior change is. I have searched through various fontconfig-related configuration files without identifying any obviously relevant entries, examined a diff of the source of the two versions, and tried a few "disable font smoothing" suggestions from the Web, without seeing any change in the results. With version 2.11.0-6.7+b1, a particular page of one particular Website looks like this: http://www.fraglimit.net/~wanderer/debian/bug-examples/fonts-with-fontconfig-2.11.0-6.7+b1_example.png This is the "good" result; the font appearance shown on the page in this image is the one I want to retain. (However, the fonts on the browser UI elements are in the undesired form, having not been reloaded from before the downgrade.) With version 2.12.3-0.1, the same page in the same browser (with only a page reload in between) looks like this: http://www.fraglimit.net/~wanderer/debian/bug-examples/fonts-with-fontconfig-2.12.3-0.1_example.png This is the "bad" result, the one I want to avoid. The exact procedure which resulted in these images is: * Upgrade to 2.12.3-0.1. * Restart the browser, and return to the page. * Downgrade to 2.11.0-6.7+b1. * Take the 2.12.3-0.1 screenshot. * Reload the page. * Take the 2.11.0-6.7+b1 screenshot. These images will remain up at these locations for some time, but are not guaranteed to remain available there indefinitely. I apologize for the high screenshot resolution; that is a reflection of the resolution at which I run. It is possible that there may be a way to modify the configuration of my local system to avoid this behavior change. If so, please provide an indication of where to find this configuration setting, in a place which should be available to someone upgrading the package. If there is no way to do that, and the behavior change is intentional (either on the part of the packagers or the part of upstream), please announce at upgrade time the fact that the change will occur - either via the changelog, or via NEWS. If the behavior change is not intentional, please modify the package so that it does not occur with future versions. If there is anything I can do to help track this down, please do not hesitate to let me know. -- System Information: Debian Release: buster/sid APT prefers testing-debug APT policy: (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Foreign Architectures: i386 Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/12 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init) Versions of packages fontconfig depends on: ii dpkg 1.18.24 ii fontconfig-config 2.11.0-6.7 ii libc6 2.24-12 ii libfontconfig1 2.11.0-6.7+b1 ii libfreetype6 2.6.3-3.2 fontconfig recommends no packages. fontconfig suggests no packages. -- debconf-show failed
