Removing non-Latin fonts from Mint/Ubuntu

The default installation of Mint (now 20) includes a wide range of fonts for non-Latin alphabets - Chinese, Gujarati and so forth.  It's excellent that Ubuntu provides these, of course, but it seems odd that they are automatically included in an installation carried out after specifying a Latin-character language (UK English in my case).  It's also rather inconvenient because lists of fonts (in word-processing applications, for example) contain large numbers of fonts which will be inappropriate for most UK, US and European users virtually all of the time. 

During my recent Mint upgrade I spent a bit of time creating a list of the font packages which can be removed.  With one or two exceptions the list I came up with is this:

fonts-beng fonts-beng-extra fonts-gubbi fonts-gujr fonts-gujr-extra fonts-guru fonts-guru-extra fonts-kacst fonts-kacst-one fonts-kalapi fonts-khmeros-core fonts-lao fonts-lohit-beng-assamese fonts-lohit-beng-bengali fonts-lohit-deva fonts-lohit-gujr fonts-lohit-guru fonts-lohit-knda fonts-lohit-mlym fonts-lohit-orya fonts-lohit-taml fonts-lohit-taml-classical fonts-lohit-telu fonts-mlym fonts-noto-cjk fonts-pagul fonts-sahadeva fonts-samyak-deva fonts-samyak-gujr fonts-samyak-mlym fonts-samyak-taml fonts-sarai fonts-sil-abyssinica fonts-sil-padauk fonts-smc fonts-smc-anjalioldlipi fonts-smc-chilanka fonts-smc-dyuthi fonts-smc-gayathri fonts-smc-karumbi fonts-smc-keraleeyam fonts-smc-manjari fonts-smc-meera fonts-smc-rachana fonts-smc-raghumalayalamsans fonts-smc-suruma fonts-smc-uroob fonts-tamil fonts-telu fonts-telu-extra fonts-thai-tlwg fonts-tibetan-machine fonts-tlwg-garuda fonts-tlwg-garuda-ttf fonts-tlwg-kinnari fonts-tlwg-kinnari-ttf fonts-tlwg-laksaman fonts-tlwg-laksaman-ttf fonts-tlwg-loma fonts-tlwg-loma-ttf fonts-tlwg-mono fonts-tlwg-mono-ttf fonts-tlwg-norasi fonts-tlwg-norasi-ttf fonts-tlwg-purisa fonts-tlwg-purisa-ttf fonts-tlwg-sawasdee fonts-tlwg-sawasdee-ttf fonts-tlwg-typewriter fonts-tlwg-typewriter-ttf fonts-tlwg-typist fonts-tlwg-typist-ttf fonts-tlwg-typo fonts-tlwg-typo-ttf fonts-tlwg-umpush fonts-tlwg-umpush-ttf fonts-tlwg-waree fonts-tlwg-waree-ttf fonts-yrsa-rasa

If you want to do the same, use the list above with sudo apt remove.

NEC Multisync 1970NX display not centred, no controls to move it

I have a trusty NEC LCD1970NX 17" display which is in regular use with the domestic Linux workhorse, connected via the DVI interface.  Recently I've been building a Windows 10 machine, for occasional use, which will be connected to the same monitor; for a number of reasons the new machine will be connected via the VGA socket on the display: there's a handy "select source" button on the screen so I can switch between the two when necessary.

But when I brought the Windows system up, the display image was offset about 15mm to the right: quite unusable.  Worse, the "Menu" button on the display did not bring up the image-adjustment controls referred to in the manual: instead it offered only brightness/contrast adjustment.

The solution, admittedly a sledge-hammer-scale fix for what should be a nut-sized problem, was this:

• On the Windows machine, install NEC's "NaViSet Administrator" application, a 200MB-odd download from NEC.  This is a tool for systems administrators, allowing them remote access to NEC displays and projectors across a network.
• Also install the "DDC/CI WMI Provider" client on the same machine; this is the component that talks to NaViSet to provide the control functions.  Without it you get no information about the current state of the monitor, and can make no changes.
• Fire up NaViSet, again on the same machine, add the PC to the network, navigate to it and find its display.
• There is now a "Geometry" tab which allows modification of the image position on the screen.  For me the "Auto Setup" function did the trick.

Here's what the NaViSet window looks like: