Turns out that this isn't actually a bug in Cairo, but in the X server; and the cairo patch is merely a workaround that doesn't actually fix the core issue:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7681 -- after upgrade the gtk library, when using someof fonts, display is missing. https://launchpad.net/bugs/52445 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
