[Pkg-kbd-devel] Bug#421390: Bug#421390: I want the tools, not your damn font!

[Albert Cahalan]

On 5/13/07, Anton Zinoviev <anton at lml.bas.bg> wrote:
> On Sat, May 12, 2007 at 08:35:22PM -0400, Albert Cahalan wrote:
> >
> > That's wrong too, since it'd still load a default font.
> >
> > I had to uninstall this defective package because it insisted
> > on loading a font at boot. That really screwed me up, as I was
> > using a kernel-supplied framebuffer font that wasn't available.
>
> You have four options:
>
> 1. use the font face "VGA16" of console-setup which is similar to the
>    kernel font.

Nope, that's 8 pixels wide. The kernel font is 12x22.

> 2. Use a line "FONT=/usr/share/consolefonts/somefont" in
>    /etc/default/console-setup in order to load a non-console-setup
>    font.
>
> 3. Remove/deactivate /etc/rcS.d/S49console-setup and leave only
>    S06keyboard-setup

AFAIK, it'll get reactivated every time I upgrade.

> 4. Remove console-setup entirely

Eh, yes. I'll probably be installing from source. :-(

> > An 8-pixel-wide font is no good for me. I'm sure other people
> > have nice 9x16 VGA ROM fonts they'd like to keep. (can you even
> > handle a 9-pixel-wide VGA font correctly?)
>
> If you use a framebuffer, you don't have a 9x16 font.  If framebuffer
> is not used, then 9x16 fonts are handled correctly.

Right, I'm using 12x22.

The font file format lacks a flag to indicate that a font is
a VGA-compatible 9x16. How does it work? Normal 9x16
fonts may have arbitrary pixels in the 9th column, while
normal 8x16 fonts really shouldn't be given a 9th column.

> > In any case, DO NOT LOAD A FONT BY DEFAULT!!!!
>
> While it would be useful to have a configuration option to tell
> console-setup not to load a font (and maybe I will implement this in
> some future version), I doubt that most people need such a feature.

Sure they would, because people like to install all packages.
Just as installing a TFTP server doesn't mean it should run
(serving "/" insecurely to the world), installing console tools
doesn't mean it should run.

> > The most serious problem is in unicode_start, which should just issue
> > the command to put the console in UTF-8 mode without touching the
> > console font.
>
> I agree here with you at 100%.  Both "kbd" and "console-tools" have a
> version of unicode_start and any change in this utility has to be
> coordinated between the two packages.

The font-loading behavior could remain if a font is specified.
Then if you pass ${CONSOLE_FONT} on the command line
and it is unset by default, you'll get the right behavior.