after switching to debian testing to get the benefits of Gnome 47 and deleting all the games I do not use, I also wanted to uninstall all unnecessary packages with apt autoremove. Unfortunately, since this action, I’ve lost the default font in console and I’m also experiencing problems with emoji display in notifications and in the signal desktop app. In signal it’s only for emojis in usernames but not within chats.
I’ve already checked the dpkg log in /var/log/dpkg.log, but no font packages were removed.
Does anyone have any ideas about what might be causing this issue or which font packages I should install to restore the default console font and proper emoji display in notifications and Signal?
Yes, I mean the GNOME console app. Sorry for not being precise enough. Below, I have attached a screenshot where you can see the status bar when I install something via apt. Usually, this should be a solid line, but for me, there are some kind of artifacts or boxes shown in the area that should be white. I hope it is visible
At least for the Signal desktop app, I have found a solution. Either the “Lato” or the “Liberation” font package was missing. After comparing my font list with a fresh Debian installation, I installed these two packages. Now, the display of emojis in notifications and user names is working flawlessly again.
However, as shown in the screenshot, the issue with the console app still remains. I also have the feeling that the font itself is different from the default font.
Thanks for your hint regarding tasksel. Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem
As the Debian testing installer has often failed for me in the past, I’ve done this a few times when installing a new machine: first installing Debian stable, changing the sources list entries to testing, upgrading, and removing unused packages with apt autoremove. I’m not sure why I’m having these weird issues this time while installing my new laptop.
After testing various things on a hunch, I’ve noticed something interesting about the display issue I was experiencing:
The problem with incorrect rendering only occurs in “Console”, but not in “Gnome Terminal”. Both are setup to use the system font OR monospace is set manually on both.
I’m currently using fractional scaling at 175%. When I change the scaling to 100% or 200%, the problem disappears.
Based on these observations, I’m led to believe that the issue is related to fractional scaling in combination with “Console”, rather than a missing font or other display errors. Has anyone else encountered this? It seems that “Console” might have some compatibility issues with fractional scaling that “Gnome Terminal” doesn’t have. I’m wondering if this could be a bug that needs to be reported to the “Console” developers.
Any thoughts or similar experiences would be appreciated!
