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Firefox not rendering Devanagari fonts properly


kagashe
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Hi,

 

I started my tryst with Linux in 2004 after buying HP COMPAQ Presario 2500 series Laptop which came with Mandrake Linux 9.1 CDs with HP Logo. I had used it for almost one year. I tried to upgrade to version 10, faced some difficulties and joined this forum and received lot of support.

 

I switched to Ubuntu 5.04 and have been using latest Ubuntu versions.

 

Recently I bought Linux for You Magazine (published in India) which arrived with Mandriva 2008 on DVD. Although my Laptop does not have DVD drive, I converted the DVD into iso on another machine and transferred the iso on the Laptop and installed.

 

Since all leading Linux distributions have become heavy for low RAM machines I don't use KDE or Gnome. I have installed Mandriva 2008 Icewm desktop.

 

I like Mandriva 2008 and may continue to use it provided the problem stated in the Subject line gets resolved.

 

When I opened Firefox it was not showing any Devanagari characters at all. Then I downloaded ttf-indic fonts from Indlinux website and installed them through Mandriva Control Centre.

 

After installing the fonts Firefox shows them but the rendering is not correct.

 

I understand that the Firefox build in Mandriva is pango enabled. I have also checked it by typing about:buildconfig in the address bar.

 

I have also checked that although I am not using KDE or Gnome the pango support exists in Mandriva since pango version 1.20 and all the libraries are installed.

 

I à¥don't understand what is missing. Please help.

 

kagashe

 

NB: Devanagari is the script for Hindi Language.

I have added Devanagari Keyboard Layout. I can type properly using this keyboard on other applications and the font rendering is ok. Rendering in firefox is the only problem.

 

I solved the problem. I reinstalled Mandriva 2008 and during reinstallation have chosen the required languages. These languages were added as additional languages apart from English. After reinstall I checked the font rendering. Initially it was not working. Then I opened the Regional settings dialogue and changed the default from English to the Indian Language. The font rendering was working now. It seems that the font rendering is somehow linked with Locales settings.

Edited by kagashe
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Open a terminal e.g., xterm or rxvt. Then install the Mandriva font package with (as root)

urpmi fonts-ttf-devanagari

Your Firefox version is compiled with --enable-pango, but now you must enable pango rendering in your Icewm desktop by opening a terminal, then as user do

MOZ_ENABLE_PANGO=1 firefox

Now you 'should' have Indic language support in Firefox.

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Try another WM. I have had the same issue under IceWM with Greek fonts, while the system locale was OK. I believe it's not curable, due to gtk1, which does not understand unicode.

You might try via mcc/localedrake to set old-style locale compatibility (press the advanced box etc), but IMHO it's better to install another WM.

Under XFCE4 it's working just great. It will run with as little as 128M RAM, although it will run much better with 192M.

Edited by scarecrow
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After installing the fonts Firefox shows them but the rendering is not correct.
Maybe if you told us what isn't correct about the rendering, it might be easier. Could you perhaps make a screenshot, showing the how other applications are showing the text and what Firefox displays?
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Maybe if you told us what isn't correct about the rendering, it might be easier. Could you perhaps make a screenshot, showing the how other applications are showing the text and what Firefox displays?
We use this page on wikipedia to check. The column "Your computer" should match the column "Correct rendering".

 

I have attached a screenshot as displayed on my desktop.

 

kagashe

post-8021-1211532970_thumb.jpg

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