Question

15

Did I accept the ttf-mscorefonts-installer EULA?

rated 0 times [ 15] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 6081 / 2 Years ago, tue, november 16, 2021, 4:49:30

The general answer to questions about missing video codecs is to install ubuntu-restricted-extras. But that metapackage also includes the ttf-mscorefonts-installer which requires acceptance of a EULA to finish. Not everyone wants to sign the EULA, but there's no obvious way to reject the EULA. See How to reject an EULA when installing packages with apt?

Step 1 Step 2

I wound up going back and forth a few times before I seemed to move on -- I think clicking Fwd, Fwd without ever accepting the EULA works, but the package is installed now, so the installation of this package was not canceled.

Does that mean I did accept the EULA? Is there somewhere I can look to see whether or not that acceptance was logged or stored?

dpkg-query clearly shows the package as installed:

amanda@mona:~$ dpkg-query -l ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold

| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend

|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)

||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description

+++-==============-============-============-=================================

ii  ttf-mscorefont 3.4+nmu1ubun all          Installer for Microsoft TrueType

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cheeturage

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2 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago atchcommo · Accepted Answer

No you didn't accept the EULA. And no, you don't have the fonts installed, but yes, you've installed the package.

I understand that's confusing. Let me explain that.

The actual accept/reject value is written to the debconf database. It is independent of the package installation. The post-install script of the package is responsible for the fonts to be installed and prevents it if you don't accept the EULA.

To check what the value is in the debconf database, install debconf-utils , then do

$ sudo debconf-get-selections | grep 'msttcorefonts/accepted-mscorefonts-eula'

ttf-mscorefonts-installer       msttcorefonts/accepted-mscorefonts-eula boolean true

This is true for my machine, because I did accept it. For you this should be probably false.

Even if you installed the package but you did not accept the EULA, then the fonts aren't installed. Why? Because the package does not contain the font files. It downloads the fonts from an external website due to license restrictions in distribution. To prove, see the contents of the package:

$ dpkg -L ttf-mscorefonts-installer 

/.

/var

/var/lib

/var/lib/msttcorefonts

/usr

/usr/share

/usr/share/fonts

/usr/share/fonts/truetype

/usr/share/package-data-downloads

/usr/share/package-data-downloads/ttf-mscorefonts-installer

/usr/share/doc

/usr/share/doc/ttf-mscorefonts-installer

/usr/share/doc/ttf-mscorefonts-installer/README.Debian                                                                                                                        

/usr/share/doc/ttf-mscorefonts-installer/copyright                                                                                                                            

/usr/share/doc/ttf-mscorefonts-installer/changelog.gz                                                                                                                         

/usr/share/lintian                                                                                                                                                            

/usr/share/lintian/overrides                                                                                                                                                  

/usr/share/lintian/overrides/ttf-mscorefonts-installer                                                                                                                        

/usr/lib                                                                                                                                                                      

/usr/lib/msttcorefonts                                                                                                                                                        

/usr/lib/msttcorefonts/update-ms-fonts

and that's why it's called an installer. This is ugly and totally non-standard packaging. Developers are forced to do this, because of the aforementioned licence restrictions. A similar workaround for this has been developed for Flash, packaged as flashplugin-installer Install flashplugin-installer .

After installation of the package the postinstall script, located at /var/lib/dpkg/info/ttf-mscorefonts-installer.postinst, will download and install the fonts only if the license is accepted (asked in the preinstall script). It uses the /usr/lib/msttcorefonts/update-ms-fonts application (which is part of the package) to perform the actual download and installation. Have a look at the scripts yourself; they're not rocket science at all.