[arch-general] Odd unicode glyph rendering issues

[Mark Raynsford]

Hello!

I have two systems here that are running the same version of Arch.
They are using different window managers; system A is running
awesomewm, whilst system B is running fvwm.

Both have the same fonts installed, and both have very similar outputs
for "env":

System A:

DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/184135848/bus
DISPLAY=:0
EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES=truetype:interpreter-version=35
HOME=/home/rm
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE=C
LOGNAME=rm
MAIL=/var/spool/mail/rm
MOTD_SHOWN=pam
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl:/home/rm/bin:/opt/bin
PWD=/home/rm
SHELL=/bin/bash
SHLVL=2
SSH_AGENT_PID=806
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-XXXXXXNocNEG/agent.782
SYSTEMD_EXEC_PID=673
TASKRC=/home/rm/git/com.github/io7m/dotfiles.taskwarrior/taskrc
TERM=xterm-256color
USER=rm
VTE_VERSION=6602
WINDOWID=12195960
WINDOWPATH=1
XAUTHORITY=/home/rm/.Xauthority
XDG_CACHE_HOME=/home/rm/var/cache
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/rm/etc
XDG_DATA_HOME=/home/rm/local
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/184135848
XDG_SEAT=seat0
XDG_SESSION_CLASS=user
XDG_SESSION_ID=1
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=tty
XDG_VTNR=1
_=/usr/bin/env

System B:

DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/128542918/bus
EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES=truetype:interpreter-version=35
HOME=/home/rm-work
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE=C
LOGNAME=rm-work
MAIL=/var/spool/mail/rm-work
MOTD_SHOWN=pam
PATH=/home/rm-work/bin:/home/rm-work/.pyenv/shims:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
PWD=/home/rm-work
PYENV_ROOT=/home/rm-work/.pyenv
PYENV_VIRTUALENV_INIT=1
SHELL=/bin/bash
SHLVL=0
TERM=xterm-256color
USER=rm-work
XDG_CACHE_HOME=/home/rm-work/var/cache
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/rm-work/etc
XDG_DATA_HOME=/home/rm-work/local
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/128542918
XDG_SESSION_CLASS=user
XDG_SESSION_ID=16
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=tty
_=/usr/sbin/env

With both systems, I can open a text file containing the following
string:

  ひらがな

... in both a browser (Firefox, Chromium), in mousepad, and in vim
in an xfce4-terminal instance. System A will consistently render the
string using the correct glyphs. System B will consistently render the
string as a set of missing glyphs.

Given that all of my software, fonts, and locale settings are
apparently the same... What other variables could cause font rendering
to consistently fail on one system and not the other?

-- 
Mark Raynsford | https://www.io7m.com