Hi Steve! (I recognize you from lua-l :-) ) Indeed, we included a less than ideal setup of fonts and colors as the default, and I take responsibility for that. The problem is that we are in an era with a huge variability in display resolutions (this variation has gone down in years past, and is now back up with machines ranging from netbooks to Macs with Retina displays and the like). Sometimes, this is even an unsolvable problem, when two monitors with wildly different dpi's are plugged (as is the case in my own setup — I usually lower the resolution of my 12-inch laptop when I plug the 26-inch external monitor to make font sizes match).
One technical problem is that our custom-designed font, which is an important part of Gobo's visual identity, is a bitmap font. In any case, usability is more important, so I'll be sure to fix the font situation for the next release. Thank you for the feedback! -- Hisham On 9 April 2017 at 20:19, Steve Litt <sl...@troubleshooters.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > After hearing about GoboLinux' unique architecture, I was anxious to > try it, so I downloaded, burned and booted. And I couldn't operate it. > > The problem wasn't the new directory setup, or the new philosophy. The > problem was that no matter how hard I squinted, I couldn't read the > screen for more than 10 seconds without having to quit because of > eyestrain. This was true of both the Virtual Terminal framebuffer and > the GUI Awesome window manager. Awesome was especially frustrating > because its menu not only had tiny print, but it was dark blue over > black. I had to hover over each item to turn it cyan so I could muscle > my eyes into reading it. > > One menu item was "configure Awesome" or some such, so I said "hooray" > and chose it. Unfortunately, the config file file came up in the > tiniest imaginable font, in nano, an editor with which I'm just not > familiar. Sometimes you can operate an invisible editor, long enough to > enlarge its font, from memory of how the editor works. But not if > you're not familiar with the editor. > > I finally managed to install gVim and by memory set its font to 16pt, > and finally got a readable xterm with xterm -fx 12x24, but it took a > long time to figure out what file to edit for Awesome, because nano's > print was so microscopic I couldn't read the filename. > > After 40 minutes trying to figure out how to tell Awesome to use bigger > fonts and much higher contrast menus, I gave up on Awesome and decided > to install LXDE, with which I'm so familiar I could enlarge fonts in my > sleep. Oops, there was no LXDE package to install. Or Lxde. Or lxde > (what's with the caps?). Same with Openbox. > > After about 3 hours of getting nowhere but getting a blinding headache, > I gave up. > > Please keep in mind, I'm not a prima donna. I use both Devuan and Void > Linux regularly, and within the past 3 years have used quite a bit of > Ubuntu and Debian too. I didn't complain about fonts because they were > big enough for me to figure out how to enlarge. In the past 3 years > I've worked in LXDE, Xfce, Openbox and IceWM, and was able to work with > them well enough to get fonts where I needed them. If GoboLinux's fonts > are preventing me from using it, it's pretty likely they're preventing > a lot of people from getting to see the magic of a directory-installed > distro. And that would be a shame. > > I have some suggestions: > > 1) Set the CLI Virtual Terminal framebuffer to somewhere between an > 80x25 screen and 100x30. Virtual terminals are vital for many Linux > tasks, and the current 200x60 or whatever framebuffer serves no > purpose but to preclude some people from using it. And please > remember, there's no easy way to reset the framebuffer resolution. > > 2) Boot GUI to big fonts with easy to read contrast. Especially, make > the Awesome menu be bright white on black so it's readable by all. > Then, for those with such perfect vision that high contrast gives > them headaches and they can use a screen with 8 complete 80x24 > Xterms on it, have a shellscript to change settings to tinyfonts and > also restart awesome. Have an equivalent shellscript to go to big > fonts (and I mean too big for the average person) with high > contrast, and then restart Awesome. > > 3) Set up Grub so as to display the Grub menu for 10 seconds before > picking the default, so that the user can step in and define a > different boot. Consider having a big font and small font Grub > choice, as long as the Grub menu itself is easily readable. > > 4) Document how to change Awesome's fonts and colors, and have that > documentation be prominent upon boot. If you make the other changes, > I might be able to do some of that documentation. > > I know what I'm asking for requires some work, and makes the boot-up > default look and feel something adverse to what the current designers > prefer. Consider thought, one can always shrink fonts and dull > contrast, but without a readable font, the poor-visioned user is in a > Catch 22: He could grow the fonts if only he could read the screen, and > he could read the screen if only he could grow the fonts. > > I suspect a lot of people, who could be valuable to the core mission of > your project (and that core mission isn't aesthetics), would come on > board if only they could read the screen. > > SteveT > > Steve Litt > April 2017 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques > of the Successful Technologist > http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques > _______________________________________________ > gobolinux-users mailing list > gobolinux-users@lists.gobolinux.org > http://lists.gobolinux.org/mailman/listinfo/gobolinux-users
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