Re: Console fonts, was Re: Jessie for Udoo X86?

[Larry Dighera <LDighera@att.net>]

Hello David,

Thank you very much for taking the time to educate me about this display
issue.

My comments in-line below:


On Sun, 23 Apr 2017 22:19:47 -0500, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>
wrote:

>On Sun 23 Apr 2017 at 18:55:03 (-0700), Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>> I'd like to have more lines/rows and columns on the console tty.  I've read
>> that 'vidcontrol' may do what I want, unfortunately 'apt-cache show
>> vidcontrol' reports that it is virtual (unavailable).  
>> 
>> I am grateful for any clues you may be able to provide.
>
>Best to start a new thread with a new subject, but anyway?
>
>The Debian Way to set a default font for dmesg output, login prompt,
>etc is (I think) to edit /etc/default/console-setup
>I like Terminus fonts (package console-setup-linux, I think),
>so I have:
>
>ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1-6]"
>CHARMAP="UTF-8"
>CODESET="Lat15"
>#FONTFACE="Fixed"
>FONTFACE="Terminus"
>FONTSIZE="10x20"
>#FONTSIZE="12x24"
>#FONTSIZE="14x28"
>#FONTSIZE="16x32"
>VIDEOMODE=
>
>in there, with various sizes available.
>

The default console display size is 80 columns by 25 rows.  

Setting FONTFACE="Terminus" and FONTSIZE="12x6", in the hope reducing the
font size from 10x20 would result in getting more characters on the console
display, I found it didn't change anything.  I presume the 12 in 12x6 refers
to the height of the character matrix block, and the 6 the width, so if
that's correct it should permit about three times as many characters in a
row.  

I read the console-setup manual pages, and noticed SCREEN_WIDTH and
SCREEN_HEIGHT mentioned, so I put SCREEN_WIDTH="50" in the
/etc/default/console-setup file as a test to see if my edits were able to
effect some viable change in the console display.  Upon reboot, indeed the
screen was set to 50 columns, so I did a 'stty columns 80', and it was
restored to the default 80x25 size.

I suspect the failure to see any change when specifying FONTSIZE="12x6" was
probably a result of a limitation of the Udoo X86's Intel HD-graphics
display hardware limitations or the BIOS or something.

I found that 'setupcon' would cause the system to re-read the
/etc/default/console-setup file, so I could test edits without rebooting.   

The 'setfont' command does appear to be an alternate method of loading
console fonts.  But, it's difficult to know what valid arguments might be
for my system.

I tried the 'resizecons' command with -lines 132, and indeed there was some
change, however the screen was unreadable.  The resizecons man page is very
terse.  

So, after much experimentation and frustration, I'm afraid I've failed to
increase the amount of information that can be displayed on the console
screen.  Oh well...  

I am very grateful for your kind assistance, David.  And I'm willing to keep
trying if you are.  :-)



>
>However, I prefer using aliases like:
>
>alias my-font-tiny="setfont Lat15-Terminus12x6"
>alias my-font-small="setfont Lat15-Terminus14"
>alias my-font-medium="setfont Lat15-Terminus20x10"
>alias my-font-large="setfont Lat15-Terminus24x12"
>alias my-font-huge="setfont Lat15-Terminus28x14"
>alias my-font-vast="setfont Lat15-Terminus32x16"
>
>because you can then have different font sizes on each VC.
>I also have a bash function to choose an arbitrary font:
>
>function my-font-usr-share-consolefonts {
>    [ -z "$1" ] && printf '%s\n' "Usage: $FUNCNAME /usr/share/consolefonts/<fontname>.psf.gz
>        sets the specified font on the current VC.
>        The command name serves as a reminder of the fonts' location.
>        Use filename-completion to specify the appropriate filename.
>        Redundant elements of the filename are stripped out before use.
>        Typically, filenames start Lat15- or Uni." >&2 && return 1
>    local FILENAME="$(basename "$1")"
>    setfont "${FILENAME%%.*}"
>}
>
>Typing my-font<TAB><TAB> reminds me of the name of the command,
>and the name of the command reminds me of the path to type in.
><TAB><TAB> then lists the font files to use filename completion on.
>
>Cheers,
>David.

Thanks for that, but I'm not there yet.  :-)

Apparently it's possible to do something similar by creating additional
/etc/default/console-setup files with filenames e.g. console-setup-small to
enable setfont to load alternate console line and column setups also.