7 ms·

Fnt: apt for fonts

89 points by alexmyczko 6y ago

alexmyczko 6y ago
You want the latest and greated fonts from Debian sid? Now you can! No matter if you're on some strange Linux distribution or some macOS! Single shell script for the rescue...
revel 6y ago
I really like this idea. Seems almost crazy that it hasn't been done before
- rovr138 6y ago
  like.. actually using apt for fonts? and for that matter, brew on mac
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
If you're on macOS, I can't say I really see the advantage to this over using the built-in Fontbook. Perhaps if you manage a lot of machines...
- anamexis 6y ago
  You can't find and install new fonts using Fontbook, can you?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    ...Oh, I get it now. (You can install new fonts, just not find them.) It's just, I personally can't imagine installing a new font without actually looking at it first. I know this provides an ascii art preview, but I'd need a more precise rendering.
    - alexmyczko 6y ago
      just replace chafa with open (macos) or feh (linux) and get a nice preview.
      - Phrodo_00 6y ago
        the linux equivalent to open is xdg-open
        alexmyczko 6y ago
        that is what freedesktop.org thinks. i prefer gopen. anyone is free to use what them like...
- igneo676 6y ago
  Or, even better, https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts 1. No GUI needed 2. Discoverable and searchable directly through Brew
  - alexmyczko 6y ago
    No preview, but yeah, see issues about why it didn't cut it for me.
dsr_ 6y ago
"apt for fonts" is called apt. If you want the testing fonts, you add: /etc/apt/sources.d/fonts.list: deb http://http.debian.net/debian http://http.debian.net/debian sid main contrib non-free and /etc/apt/preferences.d/pinning: Package: fonts-* Pin: release a=testing Pin-Priority: 600 (priority between 500 and 989 means "causes a version to be installed unless there is a version available belonging to the target release or the installed version is more recent") and after you apt update, you have access to sid.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  ...unless you're not on a Debian-based distribution.
  - G4E 6y ago
    Then you won't have apt in the first place ;)
    - dividedbyzero 6y ago
      But you can have fnt, they support macOS too it seems
      - alexmyczko 6y ago
        THIS is the main reason I wrote it.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  To me, "apt for fonts" is something similar to apt, but centered around and specialized in fonts. Like, say, eprairie, the "ebay for bison" – I can list those rare bison I need to get rid of on ebay, but people won't be able to search for horn curvature, but I expect eprairie will have that. Good to know there are some fonts on apt, though!
- progval 6y ago
  And fnt has little to do with apt; it's a wrapper around curl + ar + tar, that doesn't support any of the important features of APT (signature checking, dependencies, updates, keeping track of what is installed, uninstalls, ...)
francis-io 6y ago
Managing fonts is not great on Linux in general. I'll make sure I give this a go. A good font can make a big difference if you are in the terminal or editor all day. It's a pain to get unity between them though.
- berkes 6y ago
  Once you start accumulating all the fonts you needed over projects, your Inkscape and Gimp become terribly sluggish on booting. Other programs maybe too, I don't know, I don't use that many graphical tools or office programs. And the font-selector dropdowns become unusable. So I started manually moving stuff from /usr/share/fonts/ and ./.local/share/fonts/ into per-project archive folders. A lot of work, that a font-manager could easily do much better. Worse: manually moving stuff from /usr/share/fonts/ can and will bring them back "unexpected" on updates or reinstallation - though there are probably hardly ever updates for font packages. I would love a tool like fnt to manage this for me, but it seems fnt is more for installing and less for "dis- and enabling" them per theme/project etc.
  - alexmyczko 6y ago
    fontmatrix has dis- and enabling fonts feature. good idea, I will consider this.
  - bscphil 6y ago
    > Once you start accumulating all the fonts you needed over projects, your Inkscape and Gimp become terribly sluggish on booting. Isn't this an old Windows bug, where GIMP would recreate the font cache on every start? I don't think I've ever seen any noticeable delay on Linux. (I have hundreds to thousands of fonts installed.)
    - berkes 6y ago
      It is most notable in Inkscape. It boots fast, but many menu's and buttons will stall for seconds or longer while fonts are being loaded. There may be an issue for this in some bugtracker, I have not checked this yet.
caiob 6y ago
How's this different than say https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts on a Mac?
rememberlenny 6y ago
Not related, but fun fact: when iOS jailbreaks were popular, a primary vector was through an intentionally corrupted font file.
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
We seriously need a package manager for package managers, and I'm not even joking.
- alexmyczko 6y ago
  I think we need less pakage managers, and more cooperation between them. I mean all the resources wasted, look at repology.org...
- viraptor 6y ago
  There you go: https://asdf-vm.com/ https://asdf-vm.com/ Doesn't support fnt yet, but after this post I give it a week or so.
amirmasoudabdol 6y ago
Homebrew on macOS supports fonts through ‘cask’. I’m not sure about Linux but since they run on Linux these days, I’d not wonder if they have that covered as well.
lathiat 6y ago
The 'fnt preview' mode is amazing, reminds me of watching music videos in the terminal with blc and aalib or calib in the 2000s (Ascii Art Library or Colour Ascii Art Library).. and then decreasing the font size to get a better resolution. Love it.

89 points by alexmyczko 6y ago

You want the latest and greated fonts from Debian sid? Now you can! No matter if you're on some strange Linux distribution or some macOS! Single shell script for the rescue...

revel 6y ago

I really like this idea. Seems almost crazy that it hasn't been done before

rovr138 6y ago
like.. actually using apt for fonts? and for that matter, brew on mac

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

If you're on macOS, I can't say I really see the advantage to this over using the built-in Fontbook. Perhaps if you manage a lot of machines...

anamexis 6y ago
You can't find and install new fonts using Fontbook, can you?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  ...Oh, I get it now. (You can install new fonts, just not find them.) It's just, I personally can't imagine installing a new font without actually looking at it first. I know this provides an ascii art preview, but I'd need a more precise rendering.
  - alexmyczko 6y ago
    just replace chafa with open (macos) or feh (linux) and get a nice preview.
    - Phrodo_00 6y ago
      the linux equivalent to open is xdg-open
      - alexmyczko 6y ago
        that is what freedesktop.org thinks. i prefer gopen. anyone is free to use what them like...
igneo676 6y ago
Or, even better, https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts 1. No GUI needed 2. Discoverable and searchable directly through Brew
- alexmyczko 6y ago
  No preview, but yeah, see issues about why it didn't cut it for me.

dsr_ 6y ago

"apt for fonts" is called apt. If you want the testing fonts, you add: /etc/apt/sources.d/fonts.list: deb http://http.debian.net/debian http://http.debian.net/debian sid main contrib non-free and /etc/apt/preferences.d/pinning: Package: fonts-* Pin: release a=testing Pin-Priority: 600 (priority between 500 and 989 means "causes a version to be installed unless there is a version available belonging to the target release or the installed version is more recent") and after you apt update, you have access to sid.

Kaze404 6y ago
...unless you're not on a Debian-based distribution.
- G4E 6y ago
  Then you won't have apt in the first place ;)
  - dividedbyzero 6y ago
    But you can have fnt, they support macOS too it seems
    - alexmyczko 6y ago
      THIS is the main reason I wrote it.
dividedbyzero 6y ago
To me, "apt for fonts" is something similar to apt, but centered around and specialized in fonts. Like, say, eprairie, the "ebay for bison" – I can list those rare bison I need to get rid of on ebay, but people won't be able to search for horn curvature, but I expect eprairie will have that. Good to know there are some fonts on apt, though!
progval 6y ago
And fnt has little to do with apt; it's a wrapper around curl + ar + tar, that doesn't support any of the important features of APT (signature checking, dependencies, updates, keeping track of what is installed, uninstalls, ...)

francis-io 6y ago

Managing fonts is not great on Linux in general. I'll make sure I give this a go. A good font can make a big difference if you are in the terminal or editor all day. It's a pain to get unity between them though.

berkes 6y ago
Once you start accumulating all the fonts you needed over projects, your Inkscape and Gimp become terribly sluggish on booting. Other programs maybe too, I don't know, I don't use that many graphical tools or office programs. And the font-selector dropdowns become unusable. So I started manually moving stuff from /usr/share/fonts/ and ./.local/share/fonts/ into per-project archive folders. A lot of work, that a font-manager could easily do much better. Worse: manually moving stuff from /usr/share/fonts/ can and will bring them back "unexpected" on updates or reinstallation - though there are probably hardly ever updates for font packages. I would love a tool like fnt to manage this for me, but it seems fnt is more for installing and less for "dis- and enabling" them per theme/project etc.
- alexmyczko 6y ago
  fontmatrix has dis- and enabling fonts feature. good idea, I will consider this.
- bscphil 6y ago
  > Once you start accumulating all the fonts you needed over projects, your Inkscape and Gimp become terribly sluggish on booting. Isn't this an old Windows bug, where GIMP would recreate the font cache on every start? I don't think I've ever seen any noticeable delay on Linux. (I have hundreds to thousands of fonts installed.)
  - berkes 6y ago
    It is most notable in Inkscape. It boots fast, but many menu's and buttons will stall for seconds or longer while fonts are being loaded. There may be an issue for this in some bugtracker, I have not checked this yet.

caiob 6y ago

How's this different than say https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask-fonts on a Mac?

rememberlenny 6y ago

Not related, but fun fact: when iOS jailbreaks were popular, a primary vector was through an intentionally corrupted font file.

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

We seriously need a package manager for package managers, and I'm not even joking.

alexmyczko 6y ago
I think we need less pakage managers, and more cooperation between them. I mean all the resources wasted, look at repology.org...
viraptor 6y ago
There you go: https://asdf-vm.com/ https://asdf-vm.com/ Doesn't support fnt yet, but after this post I give it a week or so.

amirmasoudabdol 6y ago

Homebrew on macOS supports fonts through ‘cask’. I’m not sure about Linux but since they run on Linux these days, I’d not wonder if they have that covered as well.

lathiat 6y ago

The 'fnt preview' mode is amazing, reminds me of watching music videos in the terminal with blc and aalib or calib in the 2000s (Ascii Art Library or Colour Ascii Art Library).. and then decreasing the font size to get a better resolution. Love it.