diff -uNr matplotlib-1.2.1.orig/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py matplotlib-1.2.1/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
--- matplotlib-1.2.1.orig/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py	2013-03-26 14:04:37.000000000 +0100
+++ matplotlib-1.2.1/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py	2013-07-08 08:41:36.849823622 +0200
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@
 except ImportError:
     import pickle
 
-USE_FONTCONFIG = False
+USE_FONTCONFIG = True
 
 verbose = matplotlib.verbose
 
@@ -1286,7 +1286,7 @@
         except OSError:
             return None
         if pipe.returncode == 0:
-            for match in _fc_match_regex.finditer(output):
+            for match in _fc_match_regex.finditer(output.decode("utf-8")):
                 file = match.group(1)
                 if os.path.splitext(file)[1][1:] in fontexts:
                     return file
diff -uNr matplotlib-1.2.1.orig/lib/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc matplotlib-1.2.1/lib/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc
--- matplotlib-1.2.1.orig/lib/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc	2013-03-26 15:25:14.000000000 +0100
+++ matplotlib-1.2.1/lib/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc	2013-07-08 08:42:28.477258661 +0200
@@ -198,7 +198,7 @@
 #mathtext.it  : serif:italic
 #mathtext.bf  : serif:bold
 #mathtext.sf  : sans
-#mathtext.fontset : cm # Should be 'cm' (Computer Modern), 'stix',
+mathtext.fontset : stix # Should be 'cm' (Computer Modern), 'stix',
                        # 'stixsans' or 'custom'
 #mathtext.fallback_to_cm : True  # When True, use symbols from the Computer Modern
                                  # fonts when a symbol can not be found in one of