[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Ugly VGA fonts with console-setup (Squeeze)



Stephen Powell wrote:
Things have changed in the area of text-mode console fonts between
Lenny and Squeeze.  And I'm not happy about it.

[snip:  that was long!]

By running "dpkg-reconfigure console-setup" I can get a VGA font of
the right point size (as long as what I need is 8, 14, or 16).  But
the VGA fonts in console-setup are really *ugly* compared to the
very-nice-looking fonts that I'm used to from the kbd and
console-tools packages, chiefly lat1u-08, lat1u-14, and lat1u-16.
I have kbd installed under Squeeze now, and I can set the font
on the fly by using

setfont lat1u-08

for example, and then things look OK.  But if I switch to
the X console with Alt+F7, then switch back to a text console with
Cntl+Alt+F1, I'm back to the ugly font from console-setup.  Some of
the fonts are worse than others.  The 8-point font isn't *too* bad,
but the 14-point font is horrible.  The lower-case "s", for example,
doesn't even start on the same baseline as the other letters.  Is
there some way to make console-setup use the nice-looking fonts
from /usr/share/consolefonts that were designed for kbd and/or
console-tools?  There's a wide selection of them, and a lot of time
and effort has been spent over the years to make them look nice.
And now that all gets thrown out by the hastily-thrown-together,
limited selection, ugly fonts in console-setup.  Yuck!

What did the 'console-setup' documentation say about setting fonts?

Did you at least read the comments in '/etc/default/console-setup'?

If reading the docs does not solve the problem for you, you can wait for an answer from debian-user for a while. If no answer comes, you could file a bug against 'console-setup'... but I'm sure the maintainers will tell you: it's not a bug, please RTFM (and they may even tell you how to do it).

I actually use settings in '/etc/default/console-setup' to _prevent_ the package from replacing the kernel fonts -- I somehow discovered the weird 10x18 font provided by the kernel a few years ago, and grew to love it! I can tell 'console-setup' to not load any software font at all, and I end up with that 10x18 thing on all my VTs.


HTH,
Dave W.


Reply to: