Re: [gentoo-user] Fonts and bad eyes

[Walter Dnes]

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/lat1-10.psfu.gz
/usr/share/consolefonts/lat1-12.psfu.gz
/usr/share/consolefonts/lat1-14.psfu.gz
/usr/share/consolefonts/lat1-16.psfu.gz

  They are all 8 pixels wide, giving 80 columns on a VGA screen.  At
640x400 consolemode, you got...

* lat1-08 (CGA-like) gave 80x50 (unreadable except on a large monitor)
* lat1-10 gave 80x40, which was nice
* lat1-12 gave 80x33
* lat1-14 (EGA-like) gave 80x28
* lat1-16 (VGA-like) gave 80x25

  At 640x480 consolemode...
* lat1-08 (CGA-like) gave 80x60 (unreadable except on a large monitor)
* lat1-10 gave 80x48, which is surprisingly much nicer than 80x50 above.
  Those 2 extra pixels made a world of difference
* lat1-12 gave 80x40
* lat1-14 (EGA-like) gave 80x34
* lat1-16 (VGA-like) gave 80x30

  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!!!

  The consolefont program can select any available font.  Question...
* Plan A) can I get 16-pixel wide lat1 consolefonts from somewhere?
* Plan B) is there free software around that can modify/tweak the
          regular fonts to double their width?

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