Did Debian's text console font change recently? How to get the old one back?
Ant
On 9/24/2009 night, I had to reboot (shutdown -r now) my old Debian box
after over 150 days of uptime due to a hard X crash (found out it was
from Compiz crashing in KDE v3.5.10; see
http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=11946 for details [still
unresolved as I type this]).
When I booted up, I noticed the text console font looked different as
thin, slightly bigger, etc. They reminded me of Windows XP's ugly text
fonts when running chkdsk. I do not use GUI/X and go directly to text
mode login when booting up Debian/Linux. I prefer the old font
(http://androidzaurus.up.seesaa.net/image/console.png and
http://noisybox.net/computers/nzbperl/images/nzbperl_0.5_textconsole.gif
as examples; yes, I am old school). Is there a way to get that look
back? CMOS and BIOS show the good font I like, but not Debian's boot up.
Thank you in advance. :)
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out of their hands." --Jack Handy from Saturday Night Live
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The Natural Philosopher
> Hello.
>
> On 9/24/2009 night, I had to reboot (shutdown -r now) my old Debian box
> after over 150 days of uptime due to a hard X crash (found out it was
> from Compiz crashing in KDE v3.5.10; see
> http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=11946 for details [still
> unresolved as I type this]).
>
> When I booted up, I noticed the text console font looked different as
> thin, slightly bigger, etc. They reminded me of Windows XP's ugly text
> fonts when running chkdsk. I do not use GUI/X and go directly to text
> mode login when booting up Debian/Linux. I prefer the old font
> (http://androidzaurus.up.seesaa.net/image/console.png and
> http://noisybox.net/computers/nzbperl/images/nzbperl_0.5_textconsole.gif
> as examples; yes, I am old school). Is there a way to get that look
> back? CMOS and BIOS show the good font I like, but not Debian's boot up.
>
> Thank you in advance. :)
Followed some script I found by googling I think.
The good news is you can make it whatever you like.
The bad news is, I forget how..
ah..
"To reset the console font back to what it was before, you just run
dpkg-reconfigure console-setup and then choose "VGA" as your console font."
Wanna-Be Sys Admin
> I do not use GUI/X and go directly to text
> mode login when booting up Debian/Linux.
Just curious why don't you just not boot into X/GDE then? That itself
may solve the problem, and you'll usea lot less resources in the
process.
--
Not really a wanna-be, but I don't know everything.
J G Miller
> "To reset the console font back to what it was before, you just run
> dpkg-reconfigure console-setup and then choose "VGA" as your console
> font."
This changes the entry for FONTFACE in /etc/default/console-setup.
Take a look at that file should you wish to make the change directly,
and to see what else can be configured for console-setup.
Ant
Thanks, but what was it before the change? I have no idea. :( IIRC, it
was 80x24 characters?
J G Miller
> Thanks, but what was it before the change? I have no idea.
Presumably
FONTFACE="VGA"
FONTSIZE="16"
> IIRC, it was 80x24 characters?
That is determined by the mode into which you boot.
If you want a higher resolution screen you would append eg vga=791 to
the kernel line in the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and you will get
something like 132x42.
Ant
> > Thanks, but what was it before the change? I have no idea.
> Presumably
> FONTFACE="VGA"
> FONTSIZE="16"
Thanks. Before I changed it, it was:
FONTFACE="Fixed"
FONTSIZE="16"
I haven't rebooted it yet to check the settings out. I will later. If
still unresolved, then I will follow-up.
> > IIRC, it was 80x24 characters?
> That is determined by the mode into which you boot.
> If you want a higher resolution screen you would append eg vga=791 to
> the kernel line in the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and you will get
> something like 132x42.
Grub doesn't bug me since I only see it for two seconds or whatever the
default value is. ;)
J G Miller
> I haven't rebooted it yet to check the settings out. I will later.
You should not need to reboot to reset the console fonts or properties.
Just try running "/etc/init.d/console-setup start"
> Grub doesn't bug me since I only see it for two seconds or whatever the
> default value is. ;)
Grub may not bug you :) but you need the vga=791 parameter on the kernel
parameter line in order to set the resolution of the console terminals
by default.
After booting, you can run fbset with the appropriate parameters,
but sometimes (not always) this can cause corruption of the X display
appearance on vt07.
Ant
>> I haven't rebooted it yet to check the settings out. I will later.
>
> You should not need to reboot to reset the console fonts or properties.
>
> Just try running "/etc/init.d/console-setup start"
Even better (no reboot). Heh, I had to run command this outside of X and
not via ssh (thought it would take changes right away when I checked on
my local console). ;) Now, it looks better. I did see the font
differences since it was changed in real-time on screen. It is basically
the same for widths and heights. Font was just different for being thin
vs. bolded. I like bold (old school). ;)
>> Grub doesn't bug me since I only see it for two seconds or whatever the
>> default value is. ;)
>
> Grub may not bug you :) but you need the vga=791 parameter on the kernel
> parameter line in order to set the resolution of the console terminals
> by default.
Oh are you saying even if I changed the setting, I need to change's grub
side too? Wow. I forgot to mention that both legacy Grub and Grub v2
showed the weird console text problems in the past.
Now that you tell me I need to set this in Grub, where is that set? I
looked at /boot/grub/grub.cfg and saw this section:
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
set default=0
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,6)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 8d0bf8c2-1358-4b2f-aa9a-d13ea676c647
if loadfont /share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
set gfxmode=640x480
insmod gfxterm
insmod vbe
if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
# For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
# understand terminal_output
terminal gfxterm
fi
fi
set timeout=5
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
...
A bit scared to edit since it has that do not edit warning. :(
--
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Marcel Bruinsma
[ vga=791 ]
>
> Now that you tell me I need to set this in Grub, where is that set?
/etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga=791"
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Nico Kadel-Garcia
> Am Samstag, 3. Oktober 2009 23:03, Ant a écrit :
>
> [ vga=791 ]
>
>
>
> > Now that you tell me I need to set this in Grub, where is that set?
>
> /etc/default/grub
>
> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga=791"
Is this sort of thing built into recent versions of grub
automatically, or is it Debian specific? I just had the fun of getting
Fedora 11 running under Microsoft VIrtual PC, and would welcome a
place like that to set the console text formats.
Marcel Bruinsma
> On Oct 3, 11:49 pm, Marcel Bruinsma <m...@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>
>> /etc/default/grub
>>
>> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga=791"
>
> Is this sort of thing built into recent versions of grub
> automatically,
Yes, this is grub2, which no longer uses the menu.lst file
used by legacy grub. The new configuration file is named
grub.cfg (in /boot/grub), which is build by update-grub2.
The input files for update-grub2 are in /etc/grub.d, and
start with a two digit number (like the udev rules).
-
> or is it Debian specific?
The path /etc/default/grub is Debian specific, but an
equivalent file with the grub2 default settings should
be available under other distributions too.
> I just had the fun of getting Fedora 11 running under
> Microsoft VIrtual PC, and would welcome a place like
> that to set the console text formats.
Legacy grub : edit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Add "vga=791" (without the quotes, and replace 791
by the appropriate mode) to the kernel options.
Grub2 : do *not* edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Try,
find /etc -type f -exec fgrep -l GRUB_DEFAULT {} +
to locate the grub2 defaults file, edit, then run
update-grub2 to create a new grub.cfg (you might
want to make a backup first :) ).
Ant
> Am Samstag, 3. Oktober 2009 23:03, Ant a écrit :
>
> [ vga=791 ]
>> Now that you tell me I need to set this in Grub, where is that set?
>
> /etc/default/grub
>
> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga=791"
Thanks. I will try that later. ;)
--
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thudded over the mossy floor. "These are of no more significance than
the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by
planetary movements." --Harry Potter book
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Nico Kadel-Garcia
> Grub2 : do *not* edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Try,
> find /etc -type f -exec fgrep -l GRUB_DEFAULT {} +
> to locate the grub2 defaults file, edit, then run
> update-grub2 to create a new grub.cfg (you might
> want to make a backup first :) ).
Oh, for cripe's sake:
grep -irl GRUP_DEFAULT /etc
is much, much simpler to write. It will descend symbolic links, but
that's probably not a problem.
Marcel Bruinsma
> On Oct 4, 1:04 pm, Marcel Bruinsma <m...@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>
>> find /etc -type f -exec fgrep -l GRUB_DEFAULT {} +
>
> Oh, for cripe's sake:
>
> grep -irl GRUP_DEFAULT /etc
>
> is much, much simpler to write. It will descend symbolic links, but
> that's probably not a problem.
1) I cannot decide whether following symlinks may or may not
cause problems on an unknown (to me) system.
2) Grep defaults to --devices=read.
Using find with the '-type f' operand is safe, 'grep -r' is not.
Ant
>>> I haven't rebooted it yet to check the settings out. I will later.
>>
>> You should not need to reboot to reset the console fonts or properties.
>>
>> Just try running "/etc/init.d/console-setup start"
>
> Even better (no reboot). Heh, I had to run command this outside of X and
> not via ssh (thought it would take changes right away when I checked on
> my local console). ;) Now, it looks better. I did see the font
> differences since it was changed in real-time on screen. It is basically
> the same for widths and heights. Font was just different for being thin
> vs. bolded. I like bold (old school). ;)
Weird, I rebooted today and saw my tiny fonts and more characters on
screen. Also, this trick doesn't work anymore. :(
--
..."Like me with the anthill in my backyard. I spent days watching the
ants, trying to figure out which ones were good, and which ones were
bad, but they all just looked like ants, so I started smiting all of
them." "Well that's not --" "I was smiting them with the garden hose,
and with lighter fluid, and with the lawnmower, and to be perfectly
honest, I think I went a little crazy with the shovel. Those ants could
have been praying to me all day, I wouldn't have heard them." "There was
nothing they could do about it." "But, I don't think --" "Really, it's
the same with us. There's nothing we can do about anything either, so
why worry about it? Hey, this is making me feel better." "Well, that's
good, but --" "I guess all we can do is live our lives with as much
kindness and decency as possible, and try not to dwell on God standing
over us with a giant shovel."...--Dewey and Teacher in Day Care episode
from Malcolm in the Middle
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Ant
> In alt.os.debian J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:47:05 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> >
> > > "To reset the console font back to what it was before, you just run
> > > dpkg-reconfigure console-setup and then choose "VGA" as your console
> > > font."
>
> > This changes the entry for FONTFACE in /etc/default/console-setup.
>
> > Take a look at that file should you wish to make the change directly,
> > and to see what else can be configured for console-setup.
>
> I rebooted today after almost a month of uptime to upgrade my old
> Debian's Kernel v2.6.32-4-686 to v2.6.32-5-686. Now, I see my fonts are
> tiny with more areas to show.
>
> I tried the above suggestions, but they did not work. Am I missing
> something?
OK, I think I got it working. According to NVIDIA's Danix forum thread
(http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=2263528) replies,
Debian's Kernel 2.6.32-5 has Nouveau. It is conflicting NVIDIA driver
compilations and setting my text console changes. Hence, why others and
I could not change anything and compile any NVIDIA drivers.
How annoying. Is there a reason why Debian enabled Nouveau?
--
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