[gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[Peter Humphrey]

Hello list,

Some time ago I was looking for a console font whose zero had no diagonal 
bar, because nowadays I find that makes it resemble an eight too closely.

At the time I said I'd found a font editor called nafe, which had allowed me 
to delete the offending bar. At the time I was prepared to put up with all 
ASCII line characters being shown as ? marks - as used in many ncurses 
applications like the kernel menuconfig. I assume the editor had truncated 
the font file.

Today I've revisited the problem and I've found a GTK font editor in the 
portage tree which has allowed me to do a proper job. It's x11-misc/gbdfed, 
which is simplicity itself to run. I wish I'd found it the first time! I'm a 
happy bunny now.

Just an update in case anyone's interested.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Peter.

On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:53:23PM +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hello list,

> Some time ago I was looking for a console font whose zero had no diagonal 
> bar, because nowadays I find that makes it resemble an eight too closely.

It's horrible, isn't it?

> At the time I said I'd found a font editor called nafe, which had allowed me 
> to delete the offending bar. At the time I was prepared to put up with all 
> ASCII line characters being shown as ? marks - as used in many ncurses 
> applications like the kernel menuconfig. I assume the editor had truncated 
> the font file.

> Today I've revisited the problem and I've found a GTK font editor in the 
> portage tree which has allowed me to do a proper job. It's x11-misc/gbdfed, 
> which is simplicity itself to run. I wish I'd found it the first time! I'm a 
> happy bunny now.

I found another way of editing these fonts: media-gfx/psf-tools.  In
particular, it contains psf2txt, which converts a font to a readable and
editable representation, and txt2psf which converts the text file back
into a font.

I spent quite a long time playing with these programs back in September,
getting rid of that blasted zero stroke.  Trouble was, if I got rid of
the whole stroke, it looked too much like a capital o, and if I got rid
of just the middle bit, there was a sort of "shadow S" going through the
whole character.

> Just an update in case anyone's interested.

And from me: somehow, in the end, I never got round to installing any of
the fonts I so painfully crafted.  So I am still stuck with that nasty
slash through the zero.  One of these days, maybe .....

> -- 
> Rgds
> Peter

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[wabenbau]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

> Hello, Peter.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:53:23PM +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Hello list,
> 
> > Some time ago I was looking for a console font whose zero had no
> > diagonal bar, because nowadays I find that makes it resemble an
> > eight too closely.
> 
> It's horrible, isn't it?
> 
> > At the time I said I'd found a font editor called nafe, which had
> > allowed me to delete the offending bar. At the time I was prepared
> > to put up with all ASCII line characters being shown as ? marks -
> > as used in many ncurses applications like the kernel menuconfig. I
> > assume the editor had truncated the font file.
> 
> > Today I've revisited the problem and I've found a GTK font editor
> > in the portage tree which has allowed me to do a proper job. It's
> > x11-misc/gbdfed, which is simplicity itself to run. I wish I'd
> > found it the first time! I'm a happy bunny now.
> 
> I found another way of editing these fonts: media-gfx/psf-tools.  In
> particular, it contains psf2txt, which converts a font to a readable
> and editable representation, and txt2psf which converts the text file
> back into a font.
> 
> I spent quite a long time playing with these programs back in
> September, getting rid of that blasted zero stroke.  Trouble was, if
> I got rid of the whole stroke, it looked too much like a capital o,
> and if I got rid of just the middle bit, there was a sort of "shadow
> S" going through the whole character.
> 
> > Just an update in case anyone's interested.
> 
> And from me: somehow, in the end, I never got round to installing any
> of the fonts I so painfully crafted.  So I am still stuck with that
> nasty slash through the zero.  One of these days, maybe .....

I'm using "Droid Sans Mono Slashed" as base font and for my eyes, its
slashed zero doesn't look like an eight.
But if you don't like the slash, there is also a "Droid Sans Mono 
Dotted" and also a plain "Droid Sans Mono" without any "0-Extensions".

There is another monotype font that is maybe interesting for you. It's
called "Source Code Pro". But be warned, it has a dotted zero. ;-)

--
Regards
wabe

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday 03 December 2015 18:38:02 Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> I spent quite a long time playing with these programs back in September,
> getting rid of that blasted zero stroke.  Trouble was, if I got rid of
> the whole stroke, it looked too much like a capital o, and if I got rid
> of just the middle bit, there was a sort of "shadow S" going through the
> whole character.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:53:23PM +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Just an update in case anyone's interested.
> 
> And from me: somehow, in the end, I never got round to installing any of
> the fonts I so painfully crafted.  So I am still stuck with that nasty
> slash through the zero.  One of these days, maybe .....

Ah, but I also made the zero narrower. I noticed that the original was 
asymmetrical, with a single column of empty pixels down the left side but 
two down the right. So I just shifted the left part of the character over by 
one pixel, which necessitated shortening the top and bottom by that amount. 
Et voila! Easily distinguished eight, zero and capital O, and aesthetically 
quite pleasing, to boot. It only took a couple of minutes.

A question for Wabe: are you talking about X fonts? I've been working on 
console fonts on a machine that has no X or other GUI. It's bad enough that 
terminus-font needs a few X libraries, without going the whole hog.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[wabenbau]

Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

> A question for Wabe: are you talking about X fonts? I've been working
> on console fonts on a machine that has no X or other GUI. It's bad
> enough that terminus-font needs a few X libraries, without going the
> whole hog.

That's right. I talked about X fonts. Didn't noticed that you are
talking about "real" console fonts. My weird understanding was that 
every terminal is a console. But now I realized that this assumption
wasn't correct.

--
Regards
wabe

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[waltdnes]

On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 10:02:59AM +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote

> A question for Wabe: are you talking about X fonts? I've been working
> on console fonts on a machine that has no X or other GUI. It's bad
> enough that terminus-font needs a few X libraries, without going
> the whole hog.

  Speaking of console fonts, is there a 24 pixel-wide font available, or
are there font-editors that can easily double or triple the width of a
font?  I have a 1920x1080 monitor, and 8-pixel-wide fonts are unreadable
with a 240-column-wide display.  I currently have...

consolefont="sun12x22"

...in /etc/conf.d/consolefont.  Remember to run...

rc-update add consolefont boot

...to make it take effect.  That's 160 columns across, and readable, but
still too much.  A 24-pixel-wide font would give me 80 columns across.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[wabenbau]

waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 10:02:59AM +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote
> 
> > A question for Wabe: are you talking about X fonts? I've been
> > working on console fonts on a machine that has no X or other GUI.
> > It's bad enough that terminus-font needs a few X libraries, without
> > going the whole hog.
> 
>   Speaking of console fonts, is there a 24 pixel-wide font available,
> or are there font-editors that can easily double or triple the width
> of a font?  I have a 1920x1080 monitor, and 8-pixel-wide fonts are
> unreadable with a 240-column-wide display.  I currently have...
> 
> consolefont="sun12x22"
> 
> ...in /etc/conf.d/consolefont.  Remember to run...
> 
> rc-update add consolefont boot
> 
> ...to make it take effect.  That's 160 columns across, and readable,
> but still too much.  A 24-pixel-wide font would give me 80 columns
> across.
> 

Try consolefont="ter-124n". But as Peter said, the terminus-font needs
some X libraries. I never noticed that, because on my system X was
already installed before I installed media-fonts/terminus-font.

--
Regards
wabe

[gentoo-user] Re: Console fonts revisited

[Jonathan Callen]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 12/04/2015 02:45 PM, wabenbau@gmail.com wrote:
> waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 10:02:59AM +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote
>> 
>>> A question for Wabe: are you talking about X fonts? I've been 
>>> working on console fonts on a machine that has no X or other 
>>> GUI. It's bad enough that terminus-font needs a few X 
>>> libraries, without going the whole hog.
>> 
>> Speaking of console fonts, is there a 24 pixel-wide font 
>> available, or are there font-editors that can easily double or 
>> triple the width of a font?  I have a 1920x1080 monitor, and 
>> 8-pixel-wide fonts are unreadable with a 240-column-wide
>> display. I currently have...
>> 
>> consolefont="sun12x22"
>> 
>> ...in /etc/conf.d/consolefont.  Remember to run...
>> 
>> rc-update add consolefont boot
>> 
>> ...to make it take effect.  That's 160 columns across, and 
>> readable, but still too much.  A 24-pixel-wide font would give
>> me 80 columns across.
>> 
> 
> Try consolefont="ter-124n". But as Peter said, the terminus-font 
> needs some X libraries. I never noticed that, because on my system 
> X was already installed before I installed 
> media-fonts/terminus-font.
> 
> -- Regards wabe
> 
> 

media-fonts/terminus-font only requires X11 packages if USE=X is
enabled (adding deps on x11-apps/mkfontdir and media-fonts/encodings)
or USE=pcf is enabled (adding a dep on x11-apps/bdftopcf).  All these
deps are compile-time only.  USE=pcf installs the fonts used in X11,
USE=psf installs the fonts used on the console.

- -- 
Jonathan Callen
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Console fonts revisited

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday 04 December 2015 18:24:44 Jonathan Callen wrote:

> media-fonts/terminus-font only requires X11 packages if USE=X is
> enabled (adding deps on x11-apps/mkfontdir and media-fonts/encodings)
> or USE=pcf is enabled (adding a dep on x11-apps/bdftopcf).  All these
> deps are compile-time only.  USE=pcf installs the fonts used in X11,
> USE=psf installs the fonts used on the console.

Ah. Thanks for pointing that out. After negating all the USE flags I didn't 
need I'm now lighter by several x11-libs/*.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[waltdnes]

On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:45:43PM +0100, wabenbau@gmail.com wrote

> Try consolefont="ter-124n". But as Peter said, the terminus-font
> needs some X libraries. I never noticed that, because on my system
> X was already installed before I installed media-fonts/terminus-font.

  I couldn't get anything less than 120 columns across.  Here's the
scriptlet "listres" I used to check all the terminal fonts.  Note that
it does *NOT* begin with #!/bin/bash and is not chmod'ed executable.
That's because COLUMNS and LINES are not environment variables, but are
shell variables.  So they are not inherited by a deeper script.

cd /usr/share/consolefonts
for cfont in ter-*
do
   setfont ${cfont}
   echo "${cfont} ${COLUMNS} ${LINES}"
done
cd

  I had to "source" it to stay within the same shell level...

 . listres > /dev/shm/screensize.txt

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[wabenbau]

waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:45:43PM +0100, wabenbau@gmail.com wrote
> 
> > Try consolefont="ter-124n". But as Peter said, the terminus-font
> > needs some X libraries. I never noticed that, because on my system
> > X was already installed before I installed
> > media-fonts/terminus-font.
> 
>   I couldn't get anything less than 120 columns across.  Here's the
> scriptlet "listres" I used to check all the terminal fonts.  Note that
> it does *NOT* begin with #!/bin/bash and is not chmod'ed executable.
> That's because COLUMNS and LINES are not environment variables, but
> are shell variables.  So they are not inherited by a deeper script.
> 
> cd /usr/share/consolefonts
> for cfont in ter-*
> do
>    setfont ${cfont}
>    echo "${cfont} ${COLUMNS} ${LINES}"
> done
> cd
> 
>   I had to "source" it to stay within the same shell level...
> 
>  . listres > /dev/shm/screensize.txt

That's because the fonts hight is twice its width. The biggest terminus
font size is 32px. That's in fact a 16x32 matrix. With a screen size of
1920x1080 that will give you 120 columns and 33 lines.

It seems that there is no bigger console font available. 

Sorry, I really didn't considered that well enough before I made my 
suggestion. If I would have used my brain I would have realized that
I'm using ter-132n and have 240 columns and 67 lines on my UHD screen
and that this font size would give you 120x33 chars on your screen.

My screen is huge (32") and so the font is readable from my working 
distance. Usually I only work on the console when I make backups in 
single user mode or when I'm testing different options for the GPU 
driver. So I can live with that fontsize. But nevertheless I would also
appreciate a somewhat bigger font.

Just now I searched for BDF in the package DB (eix bdf) and found some
tools for converting X fonts to console fonts. I never used these tools
and so cannot say if they are helpful for you. If you achieve good
results with these programs please give me a hint. 

--
Regards
wabe

Re: [gentoo-user] Console fonts revisited

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday 04 December 2015 13:58:10 waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:

> Speaking of console fonts, is there a 24 pixel-wide font available, or
> are there font-editors that can easily double or triple the width of a
> font?  I have a 1920x1080 monitor, and 8-pixel-wide fonts are unreadable
> with a 240-column-wide display.  I currently have...
> 
> consolefont="sun12x22"

My monitor is 27" at 1920x1080. I don't know of a font 24 pixels wide - 
that's twice the width you and I are using; I have ter-122n from terminus-
fonts, which I find pleasant and legible. I tried the Sun fonts but disliked 
them. (That's putting it mildly!)

> ...in /etc/conf.d/consolefont.  Remember to run...
> 
> rc-update add consolefont boot
> 
> ...to make it take effect.  That's 160 columns across, and readable, but
> still too much.  A 24-pixel-wide font would give me 80 columns across.

That sounds to me too much like going backwards 25 years  :)

-- 
Rgds
Peter