unity error in a 16.04 LTS installation

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2017 21:07:31 +0300, Stathis G. Arapostathis wrote:
>[snip]
>I faced today a strange issue

Hi,

this isn't a strange issue, it's an expected issue.

>[snip]
>*ImportError: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libharfbuzz.so.0: undefined
>symbol: FT_Reference_Face*
>[snip]
>As I haven't found that dependency in the repositories, I downloaded
>[snip]

When using harfbuzz >= 1.4.1 you need freetype2 version >= 2.7.1
freetype2 of xenial is version 2.6.1
https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial-updates/libfreetype6
and harfbuzz of xenial is version 1.0.1
https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial-updates/libharfbuzz0b
Packages from official repositories are compiled against libs from
official repositories.
You might have installed harfbuzz >= 1.4.1 and freetype2 >= 2.7.1 from
a third party, but much likely you caused an inconsistency for tons of
Ubuntu packages from official repositories, that were compiled against
the libraries provided by the official repositories.

Regards,
Ralf