netbsd-help: Re: Larger text

Subject: Re: Larger text
To: netbsd-help <netbsd-help@netbsd.org>
From: Andy Ball <andy.ball@earthlink.net>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 12/08/2003 22:49:01

Hello Gilbert,
 ASB> I've been trying (although not very hard) to achieve
 > the opposite effect: squeezing more characters on a
 > larger screen.
 GF> this is rather easy. the kernel will use the biggest
 > font it has on boot. if you check your kernel, you
 > will see it uses a font called GALLANT per default, so
 > you can add an option to your kernel config to select
 > a smaller font. if you choose a small one like a 8x8
 > one, you will end up with a nice and huge console :)
This is really interesting. At the moment I'm running mostly
/i386 (I should have mentioned that), and if I understand
correctly wscons just get to use the modes offered by the
vga driver, which are a reasonable subset of the text modes
provided by the display adaptor.
 GF> ...you can see the available fonts by checking sources
 > there :
 >
 > /usr/src/sys/dev/wsfont
It's been a while since I looked in there. I will check it
out again now.
 GF> the default one is (if i remember correctly) the
 > GALLANT_12x22 but i'm not sure. last time i played
 > with fonts was with openbsd on a 12" ibook.
What was the native screen mode of the 12" iBook? Were there
any larger fonts available? Is it possible to drive the
console in a different screen mode? (two questions asked
with Mark in mind).
 GF> i have, at that time, wrote a kind of how-to that
 > explained how to install openbsd on that machine (i
 > later installed netbsd but i never wrote a howto about
 > it - i can upon request of course but it's pretty
 > close to how openbsd behaves)
I would welcome the howto, even though I don't have an iBook
to try it on at present.
 GF> url for the smaller font config :
 >
 > http://open.bsdcow.net/articles/ibook-faq/ibook8.html
Thanks, I'll check that out.
 GF> you just have to select a bigger font. this works
 > pretty nice on framebuffer machines like the ibook is
 > and most mac machines :)
Nice. This might work on my SPARCstation or older 68k Macs.
Thanks,
 - Andy Ball