[Fontconfig] fc-cache is not always caching newly installed fonts.

[Huang Peng]

On Wed, 2007-10-24 at 10:45 +0200, Donn wrote:
> > For a). In many Linux distributions, users can not adjust the system
> > time before installing system (Except the BIOS). They  have to adjust
> > system time in firstboot.
> I don't understand properly. It seems to me that if time must be set on every 
> single boot, something's wrong (battery). 
>   If time has to be set only once on first install, then that's okay--it's 
> before any fonts get installed anyway (I think). 
>   Either way, setting the time into the past is going to mess-up all kinds of 
> things. Why do it?

In some cases, the BIOS's time is in the future. Users can not adjust
system time and most of them did not know the time is incorrect, before
installing the first OS.  So they have to install the first OS with
wrong system time. When they first boot the system, they will adjust the
time. It's no problem. All fonts have been installed correctly. But
after some days, he want to add some new fonts for other languages
(Japanese, Chinese, and etc) which were not installed. And then the
problem happened. :(

> 
> > For b). fc-cache can not find new installed fonts too. :(
> I guess it's the time-stamp on the files, although this seems odd. Is there no 
> way to locate/grep/touch through all fonts and update their timestamps? or 
> just set the time correctly and re-install the fonts.

I can use 'fc-cahce -f' to re-create all caches. It's easy for me and
most of Linux hackers.:) But it's difficult for ordinary desktop users.
And I can not add 'fc-cache -f' in POST-INSTALL script of a font
package, because it is too slow. Especially, when users install many
font packages at the same time (like installing a OS, many font packages
will be installed). It will invoke 'fc-cache -f' many times. It waste
much time. That is the problem. Hope can find an acceptable solution.



Thanks
Huang Peng