Re: Font trouble when compiling via Windows Subsystem for Linux

[Aaron Hill]

On 2018-06-16 20:08, Brent Annable wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Some of you may remember my memory allocation error from a while ago:
> trying to compile a 200-page PDF using a 32-bit version of Lilypond on 
> a
> 64-bit Windows 10 system caused it to run out of memory. I eventually
> solved the problem by running Lilypond under the Windows Subsystem for
> Linux (WSL), but now I have a notation font problem.
>
> I have successfully installed and used several notation fonts (Ross, 
> Haydn,
> Sebastiano, etc.) on my Windows installation of Lilypond, but now when 
> I
> compile under the WSL it says "fatal error: cannot find font: 
> 'ross-11'". I
> have copied the relevant font files into the following directory:
>
> C:\Users\%user%\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs\usr\share\lilypond\2.18.2\fonts\otf
> (and svg as well)

Couple of things... You must *never* write directly to the Linux file 
system via that path.  See the following:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/11/17/do-not-change-linux-files-using-windows-apps-and-tools/

The correct way is to navigate to the Windows partition that is mounted 
by default at /mnt/c/ and copy the files that way.  It's incredibly 
counter-intuitive and stupidly annoying, but the link above covers the 
reasons why it is what it is.

Next, in terms of fonts, you should be copying the fonts to 
/usr/share/fonts/truetype or /usr/share/fonts/opentype and then run 
`sudo fc-cache -f -v`.  You will most likely need to install the tool 
with `sudo apt-get install fontconfig`.  That at least is the standard 
Ubuntu way to do it:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/18357/how-to-install-otf-fonts

I tested this with a couple of fonts from Font Squirrel, both TTF and 
OTF.  Note that I had to make the /usr/share/fonts/opentype directory 
since it did not exist.

So, in the event that you want to stick with WSL, hopefully that helps.

-- Aaron Hill