[Bug 1969709] Re: libreoffice font selection unusably slow

[David White]

I have a feeling this is something to do with the Nvidia driver. I first
noticed this on my desktop PC which was using Mint 20 (based on Ubuntu
20.04), and the "Fresh" PPA of Libreoffice 7.3. I recently moved to Mint
21, based on Ubuntu 22.04. Mindful of this lagging issue in the font
selection box, I tested the Mint 21 live USB, which comes with
Libreoffice 21. There was no lag when booting from the USB; the font
selection box scrolled normally. However, once Mint 21 was installed,
and the Nvidia driver was installed from Driver Manager and used instead
of Nouveau, then sure enough the font selection box started lagging
again.

I also experience no lagging on Mint 21 on my laptop, which is using the
built-in Intel graphics chip. So I think this is some sort of rendering
issue caused by Nvidia. Try it yourself; try booting into a Live USB of
Ubuntu 22.04, make sure the graphics driver is still just Nouveau, and
you should find the font selection box works normally.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1969709

Title:
  libreoffice font selection unusably slow

Status in fontconfig package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in libreoffice package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Trying to scroll through the font list in the menu bar, I experience
  an unacceptable degree of lagging. Just popping up the dropdown list
  takes 7-10 seconds and the system takes the same amount of time to
  respond to perform individidual scrolling gestures. The CPU jumps to
  100% and the whole system becomes unresponsive.

  I have tried deb, snap and even the packages offered on the site of
  the LibreOffice project. They all manifest the same behaviour. The
  only thing that works is disabling font previews. I have downgraded to
  7.2 for now, which appears to be unaffected.

  I have contacted the LibreOffice team and they tell me that this
  should be solved by fontconfig 2.14. Unfortunately, Ubuntu 22.04 is
  shipping 2.13...

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
  Package: libreoffice-core 1:7.3.2-0ubuntu2
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-25.25-generic 5.15.30
  Uname: Linux 5.15.0-25-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Thu Apr 21 05:01:24 2022
  ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice.bin
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2022-03-27 (24 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Alpha amd64 (20220326)
  SourcePackage: libreoffice
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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