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Re: virt terminal font problem



On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 04:12:31PM -0400, Whit Hansell wrote:
> Please select the size of the font for the Linux console. Simple          │
>  │ integers corresponding to fonts can be used with all console
> drivers.     │
>  │ The number then represents the font height (number of scan
> lines).       │
>  │ Alternatively, the font may be represented as HEIGHTxWIDTH;
> however,      │
>  │ such font specifications require the kbd console package (not
> │
>  │ console-tools) plus framebuffer (and the RadeonFB kernel driver
> for       │
>  │ framebuffer does not support them either).       │
>  │       │
>  │ Font heights can be useful for figuring out the real size of the
> symbols  │
>  │ on the console. For reference, the font used when the computer
> boots has  │
>  │ size 16.
> 
> So, on the next page I set the font size to 16 and rebooted just for
> grins and it made no difference.
> 
> But on your suggestion, I looked at etc/modprobe.d and found.....
> 
> root@greatstar:/etc/modprobe.d# cat radeon-kms.conf
> options radeon modeset=1
> 
> I'm guessing that if I change the options radeon modeset from 1 to
> 0, then the radeon drivers won't load on reboot.  Then the standard
> framebuffers situation would occur?  BTW my video driver is onboard
> and is an ATI RV610 if that helps at all.
> 
> Do you think I'm correct in the idea of changing the modeset from 1
> to 0 and would I have problems by doing so?  Thanks for your help.
> I know i sound goofy but I did a safe upgrade today in the midst of
> this mess and a cups file was upgraded and it hosed my printing up.
> So far I have printed from the web and can get noting but black, not
> blank, but black pages. <G>  YOu can understand why I'm a bit
> spooky. <G>

Some general points:

- You need modesettting, so don't disable it.  KMS and radeondrmfb
  are the future, and so it makes no sense to disable, especially
  when it's a massive improvement on what came before.  It will soon
  (if not already, depending upon the driver), be required to use KMS
  to run X11 and Wayland.

- Font setting works whether you are using a VGA console, framebuffer
  console or KMS with radeondrmfb.  The only differences are limitations
  in the fontsizes you can load.  VGA for example has limited space to
  store a font, which limits you to IIRC 8×16.  OTOH, the framebuffer
  permits much bigger fonts (I'm using 28×14 for example with
  KMS and radeondrmfb, and 32×16 also works).

- No need to reboot; just all "/etc/init.d/console-setup start" after
  editing /etc/default/console-setup, to see if it works.

- Run setfont by hand to test font loading.  That's all the above is
  doing.  This tells you if the console is capable of loading the
  specific font.  Example:

    setfont /usr/share/consolefonts/Uni2-TerminusBold20x10.psf.gz

  Try it with all the font files for e.g. Uni2-TerminusBold and see
  if there's a size limit.  If there is, make sure that you're using
  an appropriately-configured console, e.g. these are mine:

    % dmesg | grep drmfb
    [    9.046243] fbcon: radeondrmfb (fb0) is primary device
    [    9.485097] fb0: radeondrmfb frame buffer device

    % fbset -i 

    mode "1920x1200"
        geometry 1920 1200 1920 1200 32
        timings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
        accel true
        rgba 8/16,8/8,8/0,0/0
    endmode

    Frame buffer device information:
        Name        : radeondrmfb
        Address     : 0xd0142000
        Size        : 9216000
        Type        : PACKED PIXELS
        Visual      : TRUECOLOR
        XPanStep    : 1
        YPanStep    : 1
        YWrapStep   : 0
        LineLength  : 7680
        Accelerator : No


Regards,
Roger

-- 
  .''`.  Roger Leigh
 : :' :  Debian GNU/Linux             http://people.debian.org/~rleigh/
 `. `'   Printing on GNU/Linux?       http://gutenprint.sourceforge.net/
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