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 <deb...@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.