Installation of ttf-mscorefonts-installer fails for non-obvious reasons. This deb package is needed for WINE installs.

MS core font install

Installation failure

Attempting to install on Kubuntu 12.10 (quantal quetzal) I get the following error in the console:

user@comp:~$ sudo apt-get install –reinstall ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/27.4 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages …
(Reading database … 165565 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace ttf-mscorefonts-installer 3.4ubuntu3 (using …/ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.4ubuntu3_all.deb) …
mscorefonts-eula license has already been accepted
Unpacking replacement ttf-mscorefonts-installer …
Processing triggers for fontconfig …

Processing triggers for update-notifier-common …
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader”, line 234, in process_download_requests
dest_file = urllib.urlretrieve(files[i])[0]
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 93, in urlretrieve
return _urlopener.retrieve(url, filename, reporthook, data)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 239, in retrieve
fp = self.open(url, data)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 207, in open
return getattr(self, name)(url)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 358, in open_http
return self.http_error(url, fp, errcode, errmsg, headers)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 371, in http_error
result = method(url, fp, errcode, errmsg, headers)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 664, in http_error_301
return self.http_error_302(url, fp, errcode, errmsg, headers, data)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 634, in http_error_302
data)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 660, in redirect_internal
return self.open(newurl)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 207, in open
return getattr(self, name)(url)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 358, in open_http
return self.http_error(url, fp, errcode, errmsg, headers)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 371, in http_error
result = method(url, fp, errcode, errmsg, headers)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 634, in http_error_302
data)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 660, in redirect_internal
return self.open(newurl)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 207, in open
return getattr(self, name)(url)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py”, line 344, in open_http
h.endheaders(data)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 958, in endheaders
self._send_output(message_body)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 818, in _send_output
self.send(msg)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 780, in send
self.connect()
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 761, in connect
self.timeout, self.source_address)
File “/usr/lib/python2.7/socket.py”, line 571, in create_connection
raise err
IOError: [Errno socket error] [Errno 101] Network is unreachable
Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4ubuntu3) …
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/man: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/gnome/help: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/omf: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/doc/kde/HTML: 0 KiB

Total disk space freed by localepurge: 0 KiB

Trying to analyse this it appears that there’s some problem downloading from SourceForge.net.

Some searching around led me to this strange solution – install pdns-recursor.

Fixed but why?

So pdns-recursor appears to be a way to get a verified DNS resolution with local caching of results; but I’m not too hot on this and am trying not to get embroiled in the nitty-gritty (I left that behind with Slackware about 6 years ago). Why should caching DNS resolution help the download here? No idea, but it does and has reportedly helped others too – the original fix I found was for Ubuntu 9.04.

Actual installation proceeds for me as follows:

user@comp:~$ sudo apt-get install –reinstall ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/27.4 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages …
(Reading database … 165577 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace ttf-mscorefonts-installer 3.4ubuntu3 (using …/ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.4ubuntu3_all.deb) …
mscorefonts-eula license has already been accepted
Unpacking replacement ttf-mscorefonts-installer …
Processing triggers for fontconfig …
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common …
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arial32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arialb32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/comic32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/courie32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/georgi32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/impact32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/times32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/trebuc32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/verdan32.exe
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/webdin32.exe

These fonts were provided by Microsoft “in the interest of cross-
platform compatibility”.  This is no longer the case, but they are
still available from third parties.

You are free to download these fonts and use them for your own use,
but you may not redistribute them in modified form, including changes
to the file name or packaging format.

Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpYldI30.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting andale.inf
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting AndaleMo.TTF
extracting ADVPACK.DLL
extracting W95INF32.DLL
extracting W95INF16.DLL

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpEMaAPF.exe
extracting FONTINST.EXE
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Ariali.TTF
extracting Arialbd.TTF
extracting Arialbi.TTF
extracting Arial.TTF

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmp1Gc5tT.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting AriBlk.TTF

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpxD1K7j.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Comicbd.TTF
extracting Comic.TTF
extracting fontinst.exe

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpPzdNBk.exe
extracting cour.ttf
extracting courbd.ttf
extracting courbi.ttf
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting couri.ttf
extracting fontinst.exe

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpm29WGk.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Georgiaz.TTF
extracting Georgiab.TTF
extracting Georgiai.TTF
extracting Georgia.TTF
extracting fontinst.exe

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpuenkgj.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting Impact.TTF
extracting fontinst.inf

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpDGlUfz.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Times.TTF
extracting Timesbd.TTF
extracting Timesbi.TTF
extracting Timesi.TTF
extracting FONTINST.EXE

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpdhAiTi.exe
extracting FONTINST.EXE
extracting trebuc.ttf
extracting Trebucbd.ttf
extracting trebucbi.ttf
extracting trebucit.ttf
extracting fontinst.inf

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmpykOFwe.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Verdanab.TTF
extracting Verdanai.TTF
extracting Verdanaz.TTF
extracting Verdana.TTF

All done, no errors.
Extracting cabinet: /tmp/tmplwLRMq.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting Webdings.TTF
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Licen.TXT

All done, no errors.
All fonts downloaded and installed.
Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4ubuntu3) …
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/man: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/gnome/help: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/omf: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/doc/kde/HTML: 0 KiB

Total disk space freed by localepurge: 0 KiB

Hope that helps.

Note localepurge is non-standard, it installs from the ubuntu repos and strips away unwanted locale files (as set by the user). Also if this is your first install then you’ll have to accept a license agreement IIRC.