How to install the package “ttf-devanagari-fonts”

Question

The following command used to work earlier. I do not know since when it has stopped.

Is there any database where I can find the "published" date or "end" date?

Is there any other package that will have similar functionality? I am not looking for betterpackage, I am looking for most similar package to this one for compatibility purpose.

# apt-get install ttf-devanagari-fonts

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package ttf-devanagari-fonts is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
  fonts-deva-extra fonts-samyak-deva fonts-sahadeva fonts-nakula fonts-lohit-deva fonts-deva

E: Package 'ttf-devanagari-fonts' has no installation candidate

I am using the following flavor of Linux:

# cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=18.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=bionic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS"

Answer 1

Looking at this page for Devanagari fonts in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS it looks like ttf-devanagari-fonts it has been replaced by fonts-deva-extra. So you would install it like this:

apt-get install fonts-deva-extra

If you scroll down that page you can see that ttf-devanagari-fonts is categorized under “Obsoletes.” nd clicking that link shows the last Ubuntu version to use ttf-devanagari-fonts was Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

As for how to do this on your own from the command line I assume you could use this apt-get command:

apt-cache search Devanagari

And it might show up in the list of returned items. But that is a solid might since the word “Devanagari” would need to be used in some part of the metadata. Many times when package names change like this it is kind of maddening to find out what replaced it; just have to play around with keywords and see what comes up.

And past all of what I just posted, look at the error message you received; especially these two lines near the end:

However the following packages replace it:
  fonts-deva-extra fonts-samyak-deva fonts-sahadeva fonts-nakula fonts-lohit-deva fonts-deva

You can see fonts-deva-extra and fonts-deva right there. Command line output can be hard to parse — I missed those last lines myself — but many times the clue to solve issues like this is conveyed in the error message itself.