how to set Arabic in your Linux machine

for a while now I was struggling with Arabic in arch with fonts because it's minimal and has no programs for setting fonts system wide
arch wiki does't help I've searched for the solution so many times on the arch wiki but there was not full solution that can help me so here is a one for you
mkdir ~/.config/fontconfig cd to it and then make a file fonts.conf add this to the file

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
  <!-- Set preferred serif, sans serif, and monospace fonts. -->

 <alias>
   <family>sans-serif</family>
   <prefer>
    <family>Arimo</family>
    <family>Amiri</family>
   </prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
   <family>sans-serif</family>
   <prefer>
    <family>Arimo</family>
    <family>Amiri</family>
   </prefer>
  </alias>

  <alias>
   <family>serif</family>
   <prefer>
    <family>Tinos</family>
    <family>Amiri</family>
   </prefer>
  </alias>

  <alias>
   <family>Sans</family>
   <prefer>
    <family>Arimo</family>
    <family>Amiri</family>
   </prefer>
  </alias>

  <alias>
   <family>monospace</family>
   <prefer>
    <family>Cousine</family>
    <family>Amiri</family>
   </prefer>
  </alias>
  <!-- Aliases for commonly used MS fonts. -->
  <match>
    <test name="family"><string>Arial</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Arimo</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <test name="family"><string>Helvetica</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Arimo</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <test name="family"><string>Verdana</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Arimo</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <test name="family"><string>Tahoma</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Arimo</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <!-- Insert joke here -->
    <test name="family"><string>Comic Sans MS</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Arimo</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <test name="family"><string>Times New Roman</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Tinos</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <test name="family"><string>Times</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Tinos</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <test name="family"><string>Courier New</string></test>
    <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="strong">
      <string>Cousine</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

then you

$sudo fc-cache -fv

lets explain a bit

 <alias>
   <family>sans-serif</family>
   <prefer>
    <family>Arimo</family> the Latin font that you prefer 
    <family>Amiri</family> the Arabic font you prefer 
   </prefer>
  </alias>

quite not sure if it replaces the Latin font with the Arabic one or not but that what worked for me
a side note choose carefully the font you use some times the font fails on some places Noto Sans Arabic failed on some Facebook comments
shout out to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWjz0ewff4s&t
good luck

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how to set Arabic in your Linux machine

philo san

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