Bug#352911: [Pkg-kbd-devel] Bug#352911: consolechars: Cannot (yet) load a non-seekable RAW file

[Hans Ulrich Niedermann]

Anton Zinoviev <anton at lml.bas.bg> writes:

> On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 08:56:21PM +0100, Hans Ulrich Niedermann wrote:
>> 
>> I ran this command line
>> 
>>     consolechars -v --tty=/dev/tty4 -f $FONTFILE
>
> Ah, I forgot about consolechars...  It can work only with 8-pixel wide
> fonts (so I have to do another update in the Debconf templates).

I have read about the 8-pixel limitation in the consolechars(8) man
page, but between

  a) the /bin/setupcon script first trying consolechars(8) if
     present and only then falling back to setfont(8) and
  b) the description of the kbd-compat package

     Description: Wrappers around console-tools for backward
                  compatibility with `kbd'

     This package provides the following wrapper scripts, for
     compatibility with old `kbd' package, for programs which depends
     on the former's command-line interfaces:
       setfont, loadunimap, saveunimap, mapscrn, setlogcons.

I got the impression that setfont(8) from the kbd package was obsolete
and console-tools were the more modern tools, and the consolechars(8)
man page was probably outdated. :-)

> Install kbd instead of console-tools and try again.  Setfont should
> work.

Yes, setfont works.

Using TerminusBold 24x12, setfont(8) now turns the laptop's 1400x1050
15" TFT into a very nice 116x43 text console.

>> OK, what now? More tests? Reassign this bug to the console-tools
>> package?
>
> I reassigned a clone of the bug to console-tools.  I hope with kbd
> instead of console-tools the situation will be much different.

It is.

Thank you very much for your help, Anton.

Suggestions for console-setup on how to deal with this situation:

  * Document somewhere that consolechars(8) as of
    console-tools=0.2.3dbs-60 only handles fonts 8 pixels wide and
    setfont(8) as of kbd=1.12-13 does not have that limitation. 
    Place references to that explanations everywhere the user sets the
    font size.

  * Have /bin/setupcon detect when it is supposed to set fonts not
    8 pixels wide via consolechars(8) and issue a specific warning if
    consolechars(8) fails.

Suggestions for console-tools on how to deal with this situation:
  
  * Print a clear error message. This

       Cannot (yet) load a non-seekable RAW file
       read_simple_font(): Invalid argument

    is no way to say "consolechars only understands fonts exactly
    8 pixels wide, and this font has a different width."

  * Implement loading fonts with arbitrary width.

Gruß,

Uli