Bug#594817: console-setup should configure the width&height of the console

[Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org>]

Package: console-setup
Version: 1.55
Severity: normal

Hello,

Squeeze brings an accessibility regression: with some setups (like kms),
the framebuffer console is enabled by default, which thus brings a
high-resolution video mode, thus a screen larger than 80 columns.

This is a problem for braille users: braille displays are quite often 40
cells wide, thus exactly half the screen width. Having to cope with some
more text is a pain.  There are also other braille display sizes, like
64, 88, etc. Also, things like 50 lines is not necessarily convenient,
depending on users.

A nice way to fix the regression and actually provide better support for
various display sizes would be to have console-setup tune the screen
size according to user's decision, thanks to a combination of proper
font size and call to stty rows/cols. The way I see this is to add
SCREEN_WIDTH and SCREEN_HEIGHT to /etc/default/console-setup (unset by
default):

- if only FONTSIZE is set, just load the font and be fine with it.
- if FONTSIZE is set as well as SCREEN_WIDTH/HEIGHT, load the specified
  font, and call stty cols $SCREEN_WIDTH rows $SCREEN_HEIGHT to fix the
  screen size.
- if FONTSIZE is not set but SCREEN_WIDTH/HEIGHT is, look for a font
  size that is almost big enough to get only the desired width and
  height. Calling stty cols $SCREEN_WIDTH rows $SCREEN_HEIGHT then helps
  to get rid of the few extra columns and rows. We could even imagine to
  rasterize a vector font on the fly for very big sizes.

Of course, since Squeeze is frozen, we should probably not care about
the 3rd case for now.  I however believe that handling the second case
would permit to fix the regression nicely and easily enough without
bringing any other potential regressions.

What do you think?

Samuel

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.35 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages console-setup depends on:
ii  console-terminus              4.30-2     Fixed-width fonts for fast reading
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.35     Debian configuration management sy
ii  keyboard-configuration        1.55       system-wide keyboard preferences
ii  xkb-data                      1.8-1      X Keyboard Extension (XKB) configu

Versions of packages console-setup recommends:
ii  kbd                           1.15.2-1   Linux console font and keytable ut

Versions of packages console-setup suggests:
ii  locales                       2.11.2-2   Embedded GNU C Library: National L
ii  locales-all [locales]         2.11.2-2   Embedded GNU C Library: Precompile
ii  lsb-base                      3.2-23.1   Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip

-- debconf information:
* console-setup/variant: France
* console-setup/codeset47: # Latin1 and Latin5 - western Europe and Turkic languages
  console-setup/unsupported_options: true
  console-setup/ctrl_alt_bksp: true
  console-setup/modelcode: geniuskb19e
  console-setup/use_system_font:
  console-setup/fontsize: 8
* console-setup/unsupported_layout: true
  console-setup/layoutcode: fr,brai
  debian-installer/console-setup/title:
  console-setup/codesetcode: Lat15
  console-setup/altgr: The default for the keyboard layout
* console-setup/ttys: /dev/tty[1-6]
* console-setup/codeset: # Latin1 and Latin5 - western Europe and Turkic languages
  console-setup/toggle: Alt+Caps Lock
* console-setup/fontface: VGA
* console-setup/fontsize-text: 8
  console-setup/compose: Right Logo key
  debian-installer/console-setup-udeb/title:
  console-setup/other:
  console-setup/store_defaults_in_debconf_db: true
  console-setup/switch: No temporary switch
* console-setup/unsupported_config_layout: true
* console-setup/charmap: UTF-8
* console-setup/fontface47: VGA
* console-setup/fontsize-text47: 8
* console-setup/optionscode: grp:alt_caps_toggle,compose:rwin,nbsp:level3n,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp
  console-setup/unsupported_config_options: true
* console-setup/charmap47: UTF-8
* console-setup/layout: France
  console-setup/variantcode: oss,
* console-setup/model: Genius KB-19e NB
  console-setup/fontsize-fb: 8
* console-setup/fontsize-fb47: 8

-- 
Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@fnac.net>
"...Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly)."
(By Matt Welsh)