Re: [gentoo-user] Fonts and bad eyes

[David Haller <gentoo@dhaller.de>]

Hello,

On Sat, 17 May 2014, Walter Dnes wrote:
>On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 01:21:08PM +0200, David Haller wrote
>> The Linux text-console font is also very good.
>
>  I used to do email and various other stuff on a VGA2 screen (640x480).
>There are 5 lat1 consolefonts...
>
>/usr/share/consolefonts/lat1-08.psfu.gz
[..]
>/usr/share/consolefonts/lat1-16.psfu.gz
[..]
>  Then video drivers came along that insisted on taking over text mode,
>and running at native framebuffer resolution.  I have a 1280x800
>notebook that would be perfectly legible with the screen kicked into
>640x480 mode, and lat1-12 font selected.  Unfortunately, the Intel
>driver takes over and 1280x800 pixels text mode is barely legible 160
>columns x 50 rows.  On some machines, it was possible to override things
>and force 640x480 mode in consolemode at bootup.  Unfortunately, that
>forcing would also stick in X, where you do not want 640x480 pixels!!!

Hm. I've no idea about the intel-drivers, but nvidia plays nice with
"nomodeset" or rather, I just use "vga=normal" on the kernel
commandline. I do not have any graphics driver in the initrd, the
nvidia module is loaded only as X gets started.

Maybe that is the problem I have with newer driver versions (I use
295.49, any newer I tested just gives me a blank screen). I should
try using nvidiafb again.

>  The consolefont program can select any available font.  Question...
>* Plan A) can I get 16-pixel wide lat1 consolefonts from somewhere?

emerge terminus-font

might help. E.g.: setfont ter-132n. But that seems to need a
framebuffer, but you seem to have that ;)
I like default8x16 better though. At least at vga=normal which gives
me a nice 80x25 terminal ;)

>* Plan B) is there free software around that can modify/tweak the
>          regular fonts to double their width?

emerge psftools
man -k psf

HTH,
-dnh

-- 
An Emacs reference mug is what I want.  It would hold ten gallons of coffee.
              -- Steve VanDevender