Tiny fonts, was Re: system lock up, not sure if related to "your system is too slow"

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

On Thu 10 Mar 2022 at 08:44:10 (-0500), songbird wrote:
> Jörg-Volker Peetz wrote:

> > Did you take a look into `dmesg -l err` and `Xorg.log` in this case?
> 
>   no, i didn't, too hard for me to see or sit to squint at the 
> screen to be able to read.  the login prompt and screen fonts
> are so small that i type it all in by memory and can usually 
> get it right.  i used to have it set up where all the terminal 
> fonts would come up with a big enough font that i'd not have 
> that problem, but i've not been dealing much with the raw 
> terminal screens enough to do it on this system yet.

The trick I use to workaround this problem is:

. When the grub screen appears, press "E" instead of Return,

. Look at the Grub script that appears (you don't need to be
  able to actually /read/ it).

. The bottom line is the initrd line, preceded by a comment line,
  The third line from the bottom is the kernel line.

. Press <Down> enough times to reach the bottom (you can just see
  the cursor appear below the bottom line), then <Up> twice, followed
  by <Left>. That puts the cursor at the end of the kernel line.

. Type <Space> video=1280x720

. Type Ctrl-X to boot.

For 1280x720, you could try 1920x1080, or 960x540, according
to how large you want the characters. With a screen having
a wide aspect ratio, you might try 1600x900, 800x450, and
so on (ie native resolution ÷ small integer).

Cheers,
David.