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

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

On Sun 30 Apr 2017 at 16:40:49 (-0700), Larry Dighera wrote:
> 
> 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 think the cause may be explained in the earlier reply to this post.
I've not really played with the framebuffer specifications.

> 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.

As it says, these variables can only reduce the width used by default,
not increase it. I've never used them. I just set the fontsize and
then record the resulting size with COLUMNS/LINES for future reference.

> 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.

That may be the case.

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

If you're editing that file to make changes, then yes. But I
don't like using setupcon because I usually have an X server running,
which can interfere with things. (I might be maligning it; it could
be keyboard changes which interfere, I don't remember.)

> 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.

That's why I posted my-font-usr-share-consolefonts which gives
the location of the possible files you can use. Just look through
/usr/share/consolefonts/

> 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.
> >
> 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.

         ↑↑↑↑↑↑↑ do you mean setupcon <variant> where variant would be
small in your example. I used to use this method IIRC but you end up
with all the VCs the same, whereas with setfont you can have different
VCs with a larger font for editing, say, and a smaller font for
displaying more of files with unwrapped long lines.

Cheers,
David.