[Bug 2039356] Re: Unreadable text during distupgrade: follow-up

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

I accomplished 23.04 -> 23.10 upgrades using u-r-u 1:23.10.12. After
having consulted Brian Murray I downloaded mantic.tar.gz from

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/mantic-proposed/main/dist-
upgrader-all/current/

extracted the files and started the upgrades this way:

sudo XDG_SESSION_TYPE=$XDG_SESSION_TYPE
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP ./mantic

Successful verification
-----------------------
* Cinnamon: Now upgrades without the UI becoming unreadable and cleans up nicely after reboot.

* Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu MATE: Fixed previously, but I confirmed that
the latest change didn't result in a regression.

Issue with Ubuntu Kylin
-----------------------
Even if Ubuntu Kylin is not hit by 'the unreadable text issue' in mantic, it was included in the sample in order to confirm that the code works as expected. While setting the temporary font succeeded, resetting to the old font after reboot failed.

Generally, when examining the flavors for this purpose (comment #54 in
bug #2034986), I assumed that in cases where a systemd user service
didn't work, a simple autostart file should work. But in case of Ubuntu
Kylin neither works, and I haven't found any hint in the syslog about
the reason.

So where do we stand as regards the 1:23.10.12 changes? This failure as
regards the cleanup in Ubuntu Kylin is not hurtful. Kylin's default
desktop font is Noto, i.e. the same font as you get when querying
fontconfig. So while we should make a note of the issue in a separate
bug, I don't think we should let Kylin block the changes from making it
to -updates. But since that conclusion is not obvious, I'm asking for a
second opinion before changing the bug tags.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2039356

Title:
  Unreadable text during distupgrade: follow-up

Status in Cinnamon:
  New
Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader source package in Mantic:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [ Impact ]

  This bug is a follow-up of bug #2034986. Please see that bug,
  especially comment #54
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-
  upgrader/+bug/2034986/comments/54, for a more verbose background to
  this bug report.

  The short story:

  * Ubuntu Cinnamon is hit by 'the unreadable text issue' described in
  the other bug.

  * Several Ubuntu flavors fail to reset the desktop font after reboot,
  since they lack the systemd integration needed for a user service to
  work.

  The proposed changes include

  * a correction of the applied gsettings schema for Ubuntu Cinnamon,
  Ubuntu MATE, and Ubuntu Kylin.

  * use of an autostart file instead of a systemd service for a bunch of
  flavors.

  [ Test Plan ]

  Prepare updated 23.04 versions of Ubuntu Cinnamon, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu
  Kylin, and Ubuntu Desktop.

  Install version 1:23.04.7 of ubuntu-release-upgrader-core (may be in
  lunar-proposed)

  For upgrading use: "update-manager -d -p"
  (not sure if '-d' is still needed)

  As regards Ubuntu Cinnamon (and Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Kylin):

  * Confirm that the text is readable during the whole upgrade.

  * Confirm after reboot that the command

    gsettings get org.cinnamon.desktop.interface font-name (or
  org.mate.interface)

    now outputs 'Ubuntu 11' and not the temporary 'Sans 11'.

  As regards Ubuntu Desktop simply confirm that the upgrade works as
  intended and that you don't notice any regression.

  [ Where problems could occur ]

  I might have made some mistake as regards gsettings schemas and/or
  flavors which need autostart. But the code it straightforward, and I
  dare to say that the _set_generic_font() function works as intended
  for more flavors with the proposed changes. And if there would be a
  mistake with respect to some particular flavor, it would affect that
  flavor only.

  [ Other Info ]

  It's worth mentioning (here too) that the applied model for preventing
  the readability issue at upgrade, i.e. changing a dconf value which
  represents the desktop font, is not effective in the case of Kubuntu,
  Lubuntu and Xubuntu. They are just not hit by the issue since the
  fonts they use have not changed during the cycle.

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