Fonts are offset in the LabVIEW for Linux installation

[gt-thetic]

This is an issue for all LabVIEW users on Linux, not just the CTI image. When LabVIEW is installed and activated, all the fonts look like they are top aligned.

This gives the impression that the product is less than complete and the the CTI image is not made well.

[gt-thetic]

Sparked by this conversation on the NI Forums, it appears that, according to Christina Rogers, Principal Product Owner, LabVIEW R&D, the root cause is:

The root cause of the misaligned fonts on some Linux distributions is in the OTF version of Nimbus Sans. Replace this font with a metric-compatible alternative, such as the Type1 version of Nimbus Sans, any version of Liberation Sans, etc.

This means the each user profile in your Linux installation can configure a local config file so that a more appropriate font is selected by the renderer for the LabVIEW installation, correcting the alignment offset. The suggested solution is to:

1. create the file ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
2. paste the following contents into the file and save it

fonts.conf contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
 <selectfont>
  <rejectfont>
   <glob>/usr/share/fonts/opentype/urw-base35/Nimbus*.otf</glob>
  </rejectfont>
 </selectfont>
</fontconfig>

See this man page for additional background on fonts in Ubuntu.

[gt-thetic]

This has been tested on the Lubuntu 24.04.2 that is already released on both LabVIEW 2024 Q3 and LabVIEW 2025 Q3 with success. Simply creating that file and adding the quoted contents fixes the issue after restarting LabVIEW.

This issue will be closed when the fix is introduced into the next image.

[j-medland]

I like that this repo is becoming the go-to-source on how to fixup LabVIEW on linux - great work @gt-thetic

[gt-thetic]

Obscure, tribal knowledge is what Linux is all about, baby!