bug#41132: [core-updates]: Fonts not working on foreign distro (Debian)

[Leo Famulari]

On Fri, May 08, 2020 at 03:08:53AM +0200, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote:
> > /var/cache/fontconfig: not cleaning unwritable cache directory
> 
> This is certainly a classic.  Have you tried deleting this stale directory?
> Guix System does so for you, I suppose Debian does not.  It doesn't jive
> with unprivileged package management.

Yes, it didn't make a difference for my fonts problem, or for fc-cache
itself:

------
$ fc-cache -rfv
/gnu/store/hbqlzgd8hcf6ndcmx7q7miqrsxb4dmkk-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts: caching, 
new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/gnu/store/hbqlzgd8hcf6ndcmx7q7miqrsxb4dmkk-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1: 
caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/gnu/store/hbqlzgd8hcf6ndcmx7q7miqrsxb4dmkk-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript:
 caching, new cache contents: 35 fonts, 0 dirs
/home/leo/.guix-profile/share/fonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 2 
dirs
/home/leo/.guix-profile/share/fonts/misc: caching, new cache contents: 3 fonts, 
0 dirs
/home/leo/.guix-profile/share/fonts/truetype: caching, new cache contents: 30 
fonts, 0 dirs
/run/current-system/profile/share/fonts: skipping, no such directory
/home/leo/.local/share/fonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/home/leo/.local/share/fonts: failed to write cache
/home/leo/.fonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/home/leo/.fonts: failed to write cache
/gnu/store/hbqlzgd8hcf6ndcmx7q7miqrsxb4dmkk-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1: 
skipping, looped directory detected
/home/leo/.guix-profile/share/fonts/misc: skipping, looped directory detected
/home/leo/.guix-profile/share/fonts/truetype: skipping, looped directory 
detected
/gnu/store/hbqlzgd8hcf6ndcmx7q7miqrsxb4dmkk-gs-fonts-8.11/share/fonts/type1/ghostscript:
 skipping, looped directory detected
/var/cache/fontconfig: not cleaning non-existent cache directory
/home/leo/.cache/fontconfig: cleaning cache directory
/home/leo/.fontconfig: not cleaning non-existent cache directory
fc-cache: failed
------

I doubt it's related to my main report, which is that things used to
"just work" to the degree that I never used fc-cache before.