Home / ubuntu / Questions / 838068
In Process
Volomike
Asked: 2016-10-17 13:52:37 +0800 CST

Fix Font Bug in Inkscape with Ubuntu 16.04

  • 772

It looks like Ubuntu 16.04 ships with a broken and useless Inkscape 0.91.

I just installed Lubuntu Desktop 16.04 inside a VirtualBox VM (latest version of that) on my Mac Air 13" running Sierra version of OSX. I also have a copy of Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 in another VM too.

When I use the Inkscape that comes with it, version 0.91, I can't use the Text controls with it at all because it freezes up. Is there a workaround to fix that bug or to downgrade to the version that comes with Ubuntu 14.04? I rather liked the one that came with Ubuntu 14.04. Note that I've already tried upgrading to the latest stable version using an Inkscape PPA, but that failed too, so I did a purge remove, removed the Inkscape PPA, and intalled the Ubuntu 16.04 version, and, again, it still locks up when trying to use fonts.

Here's how to demonstrate the font bug:

  1. Launch Inkscape.

  2. On the new document, click the A on the left toolbar to create a new textbox.

  3. Drag a marquee in your document for the size of your textbox.

  4. Type the text "This is a test" and then choose Select All to select it all.

  5. Click the T in the top toolbar to open the Text and Font control panel.

  6. Choose DejaVu Sans.

  7. Set the font size to 48 from the Font Size: selector on that control panel.

It freezes. Actually, you didn't know it, but it froze at step 6 because if you switch windows and come back after step 6, Inkscape is frozen and won't repaint its window.

Note that I have also filed this on Launchpad as this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/inkscape/+bug/1633935

16.04

1 Answers

  1. EDIT: This appears to be an incomplete answer after further testing. I found that it brings only slightly more stability and doesn't completely resolve the problem, oddly. I can recreate the problem, but then when I click off the popdown listbox for font sizes, switch from DejaVu Sans to FreeSans, and try again, the problem is resolved for FreeSans, then, oddly, when I go back to DejaVu Sans, the problem randomly either goes away or comes back again. It's very bizarre!

    EDIT2: There's a workaround you can implement once you have installed ruby-pango. You can select the font size. When it locks up, just click the scrollbar on the font choice again. The problem goes away for that font size. If you change font size again or change the font, and if you get the freeze again, just click the scrollbar on the font choice again.

    The problem appears related to Pango font driver because you'll see this output near to when you do the tasks to reproduce the bug:

    (inkscape:6171): Pango-CRITICAL **: pango_font_family_list_faces: assertion 'PANGO_IS_FONT_FAMILY (family)' failed

    (inkscape:6171): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_tree_view_scroll_to_cell: assertion 'tree_view->priv->tree != NULL' failed [Thread 0xb080fb40 (LWP 6181) exited] bt

    (inkscape:6171): Pango-CRITICAL **: pango_font_family_list_faces: assertion 'PANGO_IS_FONT_FAMILY (family)' failed

    (inkscape:6171): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_tree_view_scroll_to_cell: assertion 'tree_view->priv->tree != NULL' failed

    (inkscape:6171): Pango-CRITICAL **: pango_font_family_list_faces: assertion 'PANGO_IS_FONT_FAMILY (family)' failed

    (inkscape:6171): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_tree_view_scroll_to_cell: assertion 'tree_view->priv->tree != NULL' failed

    The fix is actually simple:

    apt-get install ruby-pango

    Now when you close and reopen Inkscape, the bug goes away.

    • 1