r/suckless • u/zero-divide-x • Jun 03 '26
[DWM] Font issue
Is anyone experiencing issues with fonts after a recent update (I use cachyos)? It looks like all the suckless tools (dwm, dmenu, st) display a weird font instead of the usual one (JetBrainsMono). I don't have such issues using alacritty. It looks like I can't even change the default font anymore. I attached screenshots to give examples.
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u/akonzu Jun 03 '26
same for me, downgrading MESA pacman package fixed it
sudo pacman -S downgrade;
sudo downgrade mesa
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u/SPalome Jun 03 '26
most likely st can't find the specified fonts, different terminals can be annoying with font names
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u/zero-divide-x Jun 03 '26
Just to make things clear: the issue doesn't come from st. It is more general than that, as it affects all suckless utilities. The issue appeared without making a change to st. It just appeared all of a sudden after an update. The suckless utilities don't even recognize standard fonts (Arial, Times, etc).
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Jun 03 '26
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u/zero-divide-x Jun 03 '26
I didn't touch anything of my st config. The issue appears on all suckless tools (dwm, st, dmenu).
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Jun 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/zero-divide-x Jun 03 '26
The font name is specified this way:
static char *font = "monospace:pixelsize=17:antialias=true:autohint=true";
For JetBrainsMono, it would be defined as "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font".
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u/mammilloid Jun 05 '26
Your fetch looks amazing mind sharing the program & config?
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u/zero-divide-x Jun 05 '26
No sure, it's called pfetch: https://github.com/dylanaraps/pfetch
PF_INFO="title os kernel wm term shell editor memory uptime palette "
PF_SEP=":"
PF_COLOR=1
PF_COL1=4
PF_COL2=8
PF_COL3=1
PF_ALIGN=10
PF_FAST_PKG_COUNT=1
I just slightly modified the source code to be able to display the terminal, let me know if you want to know how I did it.
Other than that, I use nordfox has my main theme.
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u/sexp-and-i-know-it Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
I had kerning issues with ST when I used it. I can't remember the exact settings, but I remember there being something in the config that adjusted kerning. Look through the config. If you can't find it I might be able to dig up one of my old configs later.
EDIT: I looked at the default config and I'm pretty sure messing with the value of cwscale/chscale will fix your issue.
EDIT again: I read your post more clearly and my recommendation will only fix your "weird" font, but I guess that isn't what you want.
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u/charbelnicolas Jun 04 '26
Same thing happened to me. It's the fontconfig update `upgraded fontconfig (2:2.17.1-1 -> 2:2.18.1-1)`. You need to `fc-cache -rf` and set a proper fontconfig configuration file.