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Topic: [solved] Enlarging the boot font - some advice? (Read 2982 times) previous topic - next topic
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[solved] Enlarging the boot font - some advice?

I've been searching the web high & low (well, a lot anyway) to find out how to enlarge the console fonts throughout the boot process.

I've managed to enlarge the GRUB menu & the font for a short part of the boot process, then I think the kernel takes over & I'm back to tiny fonts on my hi-res screen.

So I searched some more & via the Gentoo forum got enough clues to get me to the /etc/conf.d/consolefont file (& a few others associated with that file). The consolefont file has the following to say (excerpt):

Code: [Select]
# The consolefont service is not activated by default. If you need to
# use it, you should run "rc-update add consolefont boot" as root.
#
# consolefont specifies the default font that you'd like Linux to use on the
# console.  You can find a good selection of fonts in /usr/share/consolefonts;
# you shouldn't specify the trailing ".psf.gz", just the font name below.
# To use the default console font, comment out the CONSOLEFONT setting below.

What that led me to discover was that the /usr/share/consolefonts directory does not exist in my Artix install. Which will be OK, when I work out how to create & populate it (I've created it)?

If someone could tell of a different path than /usr/share/consolefonts if Artix is using such, or, how to populate such a directory with the appropriate kind of fonts (a 22 sans mono type font is all that I'm really after) then I can finish what I've started. :)

Thanks in advance for your time. ;)

[edit:]  OK, I've discovered that the console fonts are where Arch puts them (what a surprise!) /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts
Now I just have to work out what they are! :) Looks like the Arch Wiki page has a link to a page that shows images of the various fonts.

Having looked at the images, now I need to learn how to convert a font file to be suitable (hopefully like I could do for the GRUB menu & the beginning of the boot...

Re: /usr/share/consolefonts Don't exist? Enlarging the boot font - some advice?

Reply #1 –
OK, before I went to bed last night I learned that it was the graphics driver (not the kernel as I'd thrown out in my previous post) that is loaded & causes the fonts that I've told GRUB to load, to change (from the /boot/grub/fonts/ directory that I'd made & installed a fonts in there now via the following command, to change:

Code: [Select]
sudo grub-mkfont --output=/boot/grub/fonts/DejaVuSansMono20.pf2 \ --size=20 /usr/share/fonts/TTF/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf

& using the following line in /etc/default/grub

Code: [Select]
GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/fonts/DejaVuSansMono20.pf2

Then sudo update-grub of course.


So then I loaded the intel on-board GPU module early via the mkinitcpio.conf line:

Code: [Select]
MODULES="i915"

On boot that caused my larger fonts to last an even shorter time prior to being replaced by the tiny default ones.

So now my understanding is that I need to use the mkinitcpio HOOKS="...consolefont" so as to be able to set a larger font & have it load after the GPU driver does.

A (previously mentioned) problem is that Artix doesn't have the /usr/share/consolefonts directory. So I've copied the consolefonts directory from /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts to /usr/share/ & will try adding the following line to /etc/conf.d/consolefont

Code: [Select]
consolefont="ter-120n"

& run

Code: [Select]
sudo rc-update add consolefont boot

& see how that goes.

Re: /usr/share/consolefonts Don't exist? Enlarging the boot font - some advice?

Reply #2 –
That worked. :)

The font was still too small, so I enlarged it & made it bold by using the following in /etc/conf.d/consolefont

Code: [Select]
consolefont="ter-132b"

Anyway, now I can better read what's going on through much of the boot process & all of the logging off process. :D

This effort would be a waste of time for anyone using an SSD or such that gives incredibly fast boots. As it is on this machine there are parts of the boot process logging that is just too fast for me to be able to read.
 

Re: [solved] Enlarging the boot font - some advice?

Reply #3 –
For anyone interested in changing the size of the boot up/down process fonts, the following may be of interest:

As part of the process to enlarge the boot up/down process fonts, we used to have to, but now we no longer need to, add consolefonts to the end of the HOOKS= line in mkinitcpio.conf.

The collection of all the X.Org Server protocol headers formerly distributed as separate, standalone packages have been rolled up into Xorgproto. So if you have used this how-to to enlarge your boot up/down process fonts, you should edit your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file & remove consolefonts from the end of the HOOKS= line.