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`serif` font family defaults to `Clear Sans` instead of a serif font
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Description

Fontconfig selects Clear Sans as the default serif font.

$ fc-match serif
ClearSans-Regular.ttf: "Clear Sans" "Regular"

This seems to be caused by a misconfiguration in fontconfig

/usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/60-latin.conf:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <its:rules xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" version="1.0">
    <its:translateRule translate="no" selector="/fontconfig/*[not(self::description)]"/>
  </its:rules>

  <description>Set preferable fonts for Latin</description>
	<alias>
		<family>serif</family>
		<prefer>
			<family>Clear Sans</family>
[...snip...]

Additionally, the default sans-serif family font is also Clear Sans instead of Noto Sans.

$ fc-match sans-serif
ClearSans-Regular.ttf: "Clear Sans" "Regular"

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Event Timeline

DataDrake triaged this task as Normal priority.Feb 16 2020, 4:13 PM
DataDrake edited projects, added Software; removed Lacks Project.
DataDrake added a subscriber: DataDrake.

To be clear, Firefox and fontconfig are both behaving correctly. It's more that the system defaults aren't being conveyed to fontconfig.

@ermo This is something we should probably look into fixing for 4.5, would you agree?

TClark77 lowered the priority of this task from Normal to Low.Jun 17 2023, 5:39 AM
TClark77 removed a subscriber: DataDrake.

Clear Sans does not have a matching Serif font. There was a discussion in the Dev Matrix room where it was suggested we use a font set that has matching sans and serif variants.

Two suggestions:
https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/merriweather / https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/merriweather-sans
Noto Sans / Noto Serif