When we have build == host != target, we don't want to patch in a
prefixed pkg-config used for cross compiling. Using `pkgsHostHost`
expressses the intent.
Then again, per https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/51176 leaving
`buildPackages.pkg-config` is arguably also correct, if we do further
cross compilation and want to run `freetype-config`. Really, there is no
good solution.
continuation of #109595
pkgconfig was aliased in 2018, however, it remained in
all-packages.nix due to its wide usage. This cleans
up the remaining references to pkgs.pkgsconfig and
moves the entry to aliases.nix.
python3Packages.pkgconfig remained unchanged because
it's the canonical name of the upstream package
on pypi.
I made a mistake merge. Reverting it in c778945806 undid the state
on master, but now I realize it crippled the git merge mechanism.
As the merge contained a mix of commits from `master..staging-next`
and other commits from `staging-next..staging`, it got the
`staging-next` branch into a state that was difficult to recover.
I reconstructed the "desired" state of staging-next tree by:
- checking out the last commit of the problematic range: 4effe769e2
- `git rebase -i --preserve-merges a8a018ddc0` - dropping the mistaken
merge commit and its revert from that range (while keeping
reapplication from 4effe769e2)
- merging the last unaffected staging-next commit (803ca85c20)
- fortunately no other commits have been pushed to staging-next yet
- applying a diff on staging-next to get it into that state
* freetype: Remove unnecessary `--disable-static`.
The true-by-default `dontDisableStatic` already takes care of it.
Fixes freetype not being overridable to have static libs.
* treewide: Remove unnecessary `--disable-static`.
The true-by-default `dontDisableStatic` already takes care of it.
Fixes these packages not being overridable to have static libs.
Following legacy packing conventions, `isArm` was defined just for
32-bit ARM instruction set. This is confusing to non packagers though,
because Aarch64 is an ARM instruction set.
The official ARM overview for ARMv8[1] is surprisingly not confusing,
given the overall state of affairs for ARM naming conventions, and
offers us a solution. It divides the nomenclature into three levels:
```
ISA: ARMv8 {-A, -R, -M}
/ \
Mode: Aarch32 Aarch64
| / \
Encoding: A64 A32 T32
```
At the top is the overall v8 instruction set archicture. Second are the
two modes, defined by bitwidth but differing in other semantics too, and
buttom are the encodings, (hopefully?) isomorphic if they encode the
same mode.
The 32 bit encodings are mostly backwards compatible with previous
non-Thumb and Thumb encodings, and if so we can pun the mode names to
instead mean "sets of compatable or isomorphic encodings", and then
voilà we have nice names for 32-bit and 64-bit arm instruction sets
which do not use the word ARM so as to not confused either laymen or
experienced ARM packages.
[1]: https://developer.arm.com/products/architecture/a-profile
The old forms presumably predates, or were made in ignorance of,
`let inherit`. This way is better style as the scoping as more lexical,
something which Nix can (or might already!) take advantage of.
The Infinality bytecode interpreter is removed in favor of the new v40 TrueType
interpreter. In the past, the Infinality interpreter provided support for
ClearType-style hinting instructions while the default interpreter (then v35)
provided support only for original TrueType-style instructions. The v40
interpreter corrects this deficiency, so the Infinality interpreter is no longer
necessary.
To understand why the Infinality interpreter is no longer necessary, we should
understand how ClearType differs from TrueType and how the v40 interpreter
works. The following is a summary of information available on the FreeType
website [1] mixed with my own editorializing.
TrueType instructions use horizontal and vertical hints to improve glyph
rendering. Before TrueType, fonts were only vertically hinted; horizontal hints
improved rendering by snapping stems to pixel boundaries. Horizontal hinting is
a risk because it can significantly distort glyph shapes and kerning. Extensive
testing at different resolutions is needed to perfect the TrueType
hints. Microsoft invested significant effort to do this with its "Core fonts for
the Web" project, but few other typefaces have seen this level of attention.
With the advent of subpixel rendering, the effective horizontal resolution of
most displays increased significantly. ClearType eschews horizontal hinting in
favor of horizontal supersampling. Most fonts are designed for the Microsoft
bytecode interpreter, which implements a compatibility mode with
TrueType-style (horizontal and vertical) instructions. However, applying the
full horizontal hints to subpixel-rendered fonts leads to color fringes and
inconsistent stem widths. The Infinality interpreter implements several
techniques to mitigate these problems, going so far as to embed font- and
glyph-specific hacks in the interpreter. On the other hand, the v40 interpreter
ignores the horizontal hinting instructions so that glyphs render as they are
intended to on the Microsoft interpreter. Without the horizontal hints, the
problems of glyph and kerning distortion, color fringes, and inconsistent stem
widths--the problems the Infinality interpreter was created to solve--simply
don't occur in the first place.
There are also security concerns which motivate removing the Infinality patches.
Although there is an updated version of the Infinality interpreter for FreeType
2.7, the lack of a consistent upstream maintainer is a security concern. The
interpreter is a Turing-complete virtual machine which has had security
vulnerabilities in the past. While the default interpreter is used in billions
of devices and is maintained by an active developer, the Infinality interpreter
is neither scrutinized nor maintained. We will probably never know if there are
defects in the Infinality interpreter, and if they were discovered they would
likely never be fixed. I do not think that is an acceptable situtation for a
core library like FreeType.
Dropping the Infinality patches means that font rendering will be less
customizable. I think this is an acceptable trade-off. The Infinality
interpreter made many compromises to mitigate the problems with horizontal
hinting; the main purpose of customization is to tailor these compromises to the
user's preferences. The new interpreter does not have to make these compromises
because it renders fonts as their designers intended, so this level of
customization is not necessary.
The Infinality-associated patches are also removed from cairo. These patches
only set the default rendering options in case they aren't set though
Fontconfig. On NixOS, the rendering options are always set in Fontconfig, so
these patches never actually did anything for us!
The Fontconfig test suite is patched to account for a quirk in the way PCF fonts
are named.
The fontconfig option `hintstyle` is no longer configurable in NixOS. This
option selects the TrueType interpreter; the v40 interpreter is `hintslight` and
the older v35 interpreter is `hintmedium` or `hintfull` (which have actually
always been the same thing). The setting may still be changed through the
`localConf` option or by creating a user Fontconfig file.
Users with HiDPI displays should probably disable hinting and antialiasing: at
best they have no visible effect.
The fontconfig-ultimate settings are still available in NixOS, but they are no
longer the default. They still work, but their main purpose is to set rendering
quirks which are no longer necessary and may actually be
detrimental (e.g. setting `hintfull` for some fonts). Also, the vast array of
font substitutions provided is not an appropriate default; the default setting
should be to give the user the font they asked for.
[1]. https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/subpixel-hinting.html
The fontconfig-ultimate patches are unmaintained. Since they were
not updated for newer FreeType versions, this removes them and
disables fontconfig-ultimate by default.