Ubuntu font family displayed as squares/rectangles [Solved]

[Cristobal]

I have installed the Ubuntu font family through the MX package installer on my second laptop (Thinkpad x200 running MX21-1 as of yesterday). Oddly enough, the fonts look like rectangles in the font manager... Conversely, I installed the same fonts on my main laptop (Thinkpad x200s running MX19-4) and they are perfectly displayed.

Any quick fix?

The MX21-1 laptop specs:

Code: Select all

Snapshot created on: 20220715_1108
System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-16-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-16-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.24 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.16.1 vt: 7 
           dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: MX-21.1_x64 Wildflower April 9  2022 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 745434U v: ThinkPad X200 serial: <filter> 
           Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 745434U serial: <filter> BIOS: LENOVO v: 7XET61WW (3.11 ) 
           date: 11/09/2009 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 16.5 Wh (98.8%) condition: 16.7/84.2 Wh (19.8%) volts: 12.6 
           min: 10.8 model: SANYO 42T4649 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Charging 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo P8700 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Penryn 
           family: 6 model-id: 17 (23) stepping: A (10) microcode: A0B cache: L2: 3 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 bogomips: 10108 
           Speed: 798 MHz min/max: 800/2534 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 798 2: 798 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX unsupported 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion 
           Type: mds status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT disabled 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 
           v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:2a42 class-ID: 0300 
           Device-2: Lenovo Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 2-6:3 
           chip-ID: 17ef:480c class-ID: 0e02 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 compositor: compton v: 1 driver: loaded: intel 
           display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1280x800 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 338x211mm (13.3x8.3") 
           s-diag: 398mm (15.7") 
           Monitor-1: LVDS1 res: 1280x800 hz: 60 dpi: 125 size: 260x160mm (10.2x6.3") 
           diag: 305mm (12") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel GM45 Express (CTG) v: 2.1 Mesa 20.3.5 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio vendor: Lenovo ThinkPad T400 driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:293e class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-16-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82567LF Gigabit Network vendor: Lenovo driver: e1000e v: kernel 
           port: 1820 bus-ID: 00:19.0 chip-ID: 8086:10bf class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network driver: iwlwifi v: kernel 
           modules: wl port: 1c20 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:4237 class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Broadcom BCM2045B (BDC-2.1) [Bluetooth Controller] type: USB driver: btusb 
           v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-2:3 chip-ID: 0a5c:2145 class-ID: fe01 
           Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: down bt-service: N/A rfk-block: 
           hardware: no software: no address: <filter> 
           Info: acl-mtu: 1021:8 sco-mtu: 64:1 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff park 
           link-mode: slave accept 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 262.38 GiB used: 66.46 GiB (25.3%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WD2500LPVX-00V0TT0 
           size: 232.89 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s 
           type: HDD rpm: 5400 serial: <filter> rev: 1A01 scheme: MBR 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB vendor: Ricoh model: R5U880FlashMedia 
           size: 29.5 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: SSD serial: <filter> 
           rev: 0000 scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure? 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 12.21 GiB size: 11.91 GiB (97.60%) used: 7.95 GiB (66.7%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 
           ID-2: /home raw-size: 12.21 GiB size: 11.91 GiB (97.60%) used: 686.6 MiB (5.6%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 maj-min: 8:5 
Swap:      Alert: No swap data was found. 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 55.0 C mobo: 45.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): fan-1: 2006 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 2084 lib: 1016 flatpak: 0 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http://deb.librewolf.net bullseye main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distributions/mxlinux/packages/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nordvpn.list 
           1: deb https://repo.nordvpn.com/deb/nordvpn/debian stable main
Info:      Processes: 225 Uptime: 7m wakeups: 2 Memory: 3.74 GiB used: 1.04 GiB (27.8%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 
           alt: 10 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.4 running-in: quick-system-info-mx 
           inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

[dolphin_oracle]

what font manager?

[Cristobal]

Yes, the font manager in your screenshot.

[Cristobal]

Here is a screenshot:
https://imgur.com/kwdE0ia.png

[JayM]

It works fine here. What happens after you change your MX package mirror to one of the ones on MX servers or to the "mothership" in Salt Lake City, update apt, then reinstall both the font manager and the Ubuntu font?

[Cristobal]

@JayM
I did what you suggested, uninstalled the font manager and the ubuntu fonts, changed to the Salt Lake repo, updated, and then reinstalled the font manager and the fonts, still the same result: characters are shown as rectangle.
I even placed the ubuntu fonts in the fonts folder (/user/share/fonts/truetype) manually, but even then, characters were rectangles when visualised in the font viewer. That's really strange.

[dolphin_oracle]

do the fonts display correctly when in use despite how they look in font-manager?

why did you have to place them manually? installing via the package should have done that.

maybe the font cache needs rebuilt.

Code: Select all

fc-cache -r -s -v

[Cristobal]

@dolphin_oracle
The fonts do not display correctly:I chose a ubuntu font (I guess, because it looks like a group of squares) in settings>appearance>fonts and it displayed squares in all active windows.
Rebuilding the cache did not the trick either.

[dolphin_oracle]

Do other fonts display correctly?

Do you have a second set of Ubuntu fonts somewhere in your home folder?

[Cristobal]

Yes, other fonts display correctly.

All ubuntu fonts were removed (using the package installer or manually) prior to any re-installation.

The problem only occurs with ubuntu font family. I tried with the ubuntu fonts from the repo, the latest version downloaded from https://design.ubuntu.com/font/and a slightly older version, installed with the font manager. All of them look like squares when installed or viewed with the font viewer.

I was going to try installing the fonts with "typecatcher" but it seems this app is not in the repo or non longer maintained.