Hello, all.

FreeBSD 14.1 RELEASE here.

The virtual TTYs (Ctrl+Alt+F1..F8) are provided through VT(4),
the man page to which mentions only one tool for setting
up the font -- vidcontrol(1), which affects only the TTY on which
the program is invoked.

How, then, can I set up the font I need (e.g. terminus-b32.fnt),
a) as early in the boot process as possble, and
b) for all TTYs, 1 to 8 ?

Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> writes:
> FreeBSD 14.1 RELEASE here.
>
> The virtual TTYs (Ctrl+Alt+F1..F8) are provided through VT(4),
> the man page to which mentions only one tool for setting
> up the font -- vidcontrol(1), which affects only the TTY on which
> the program is invoked.

Actually, I think it operates on stdin, which you can specify.

> How, then, can I set up the font I need (e.g. terminus-b32.fnt),
> a) as early in the boot process as possble, and
> b) for all TTYs, 1 to 8 ?

The following, done as root, perhaps in /etc/rc.local, might work:

vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv1
vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv2
vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv3
vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv4
vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv5
vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv6
vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv7
vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv8

(or use a shell loop).

There may well be a more elegant solution, such as some kern.vt.*
variable one can set, but I don't know it.
-WBE

On Sat, 21 Sep 2024 19:20:31 -0000 (UTC), Anton Shepelev wrote:
>
> Hello, all.
>
> FreeBSD 14.1 RELEASE here.
>
> The virtual TTYs (Ctrl+Alt+F1..F8) are provided through VT(4),
> the man page to which mentions only one tool for setting
> up the font -- vidcontrol(1), which affects only the TTY on which
> the program is invoked.
>
> How, then, can I set up the font I need (e.g. terminus-b32.fnt),
> a) as early in the boot process as possble, and
> b) for all TTYs, 1 to 8 ?

Simply put following into /etc/rc.config:
fontb32="terminus-b32.fnt"

sysrc fontb32="terminus-b32.fnt"
does the job.

man rc.conf
or
less /etc/defaults/rc.conf
for other useful settings.

Detlef
--
https://www.12schrittefrei.de/
https://www.noart.de/

Winston <wbe@ubeblock.psr.com.invalid> wrote:
>Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> writes:
>> FreeBSD 14.1 RELEASE here.
>>
>> The virtual TTYs (Ctrl+Alt+F1..F8) are provided through VT(4),
>> the man page to which mentions only one tool for setting
>> up the font -- vidcontrol(1), which affects only the TTY on which
>> the program is invoked.
>
>Actually, I think it operates on stdin, which you can specify.

Thanks, I didn't realise that: the man page does not say so
explicitly[*], but provides examles with `< /dev/ttyv<n>', which,
however, make no changes, but dump the contents of a terminal to
stdout or an .scr file. How can a redirection of STDIN affect which
TTY takes the new settings? I see it does, but am a loss as to
how... There only one mentinon of standard input in the man page,
and that in the context of the -p option.

* It is my long-standing conviction that documenation shall state
explicitly whatever it has to state, and use examples only
to /illustarte/ directly expressed information. VIDCONTROL(8)
seems to fall short of this.

>> How, then, can I set up the font I need (e.g. terminus-b32.fnt),
>> a) as early in the boot process as possble, and
>> b) for all TTYs, 1 to 8 ?
>
>The following, done as root, perhaps in /etc/rc.local, might work:
>
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv1
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv2
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv3
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv4
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv5
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv6
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv7
>vidcontrol -f terminus-b32 </dev/ttyv8
>
>(or use a shell loop).

Indeed, thank you.

>There may well be a more elegant solution, such as some kern.vt.*
>variable one can set, but I don't know it.

VT(4) does not mention a suitable variable.

Detlef Sax <sax@noart.de> wrote:
>On Sat, 21 Sep 2024 19:20:31 -0000 (UTC), Anton Shepelev wrote:
>>
>> FreeBSD 14.1 RELEASE here.
>>
>> The virtual TTYs (Ctrl+Alt+F1..F8) are provided through VT(4),
>> the man page to which mentions only one tool for setting
>> up the font -- vidcontrol(1), which affects only the TTY on which
>> the program is invoked.
>>
>> How, then, can I set up the font I need (e.g. terminus-b32.fnt),
>> a) as early in the boot process as possble, and
>> b) for all TTYs, 1 to 8 ?

>Simply put following into /etc/rc.config:
>fontb32="terminus-b32.fnt"

You mean in /etc/rc.conf? Unfortunately, this line
has no effect, at least no the one I seek. I think
this is an unrecognised variable, not check by any
component.

>sysrc fontb32="terminus-b32.fnt"
>does the job.

Yes, and I wonder why FreeBSD provides a dedicdated
utility for adding lines info rc.conf. Querying those
values is certainly useful, though.

>man rc.conf
>or
>less /etc/defaults/rc.conf
>for other useful settings.

Thank you, but fontb32 is not mentioned in either.
How did you learn about the `fontb32' setting?

Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> wrote
in <vcn69v$1u780$1@paganini.bofh.team>:
#
# Hello, all.
#
# FreeBSD 14.1 RELEASE here.
#
# The virtual TTYs (Ctrl+Alt+F1..F8) are provided through VT(4),
# the man page to which mentions only one tool for setting
# up the font -- vidcontrol(1), which affects only the TTY on which
# the program is invoked.
#
# How, then, can I set up the font I need (e.g. terminus-b32.fnt),
# a) as early in the boot process as possble, and
# b) for all TTYs, 1 to 8 ?

I have in /etc/rc.conf this for the gallant font:

allscreens_flags="-f gallant"

That's the Sun Microsystems console font, simply unsurpassed,
for those who remember. Sigh...

Regards,

Jens
--
Jens Schweikhardt https://www.schweikhardt.net/
SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)

Jens Schweikhardt <usenet@schweikhardt.net> wrote:
> Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> wrote
> in <vcn69v$1u780$1@paganini.bofh.team>:
> #
> # Hello, all.
> #
> # FreeBSD 14.1 RELEASE here.
> #
> # The virtual TTYs (Ctrl+Alt+F1..F8) are provided through VT(4),
> # the man page to which mentions only one tool for setting
> # up the font -- vidcontrol(1), which affects only the TTY on which
> # the program is invoked.
> #
> # How, then, can I set up the font I need (e.g. terminus-b32.fnt),
> # a) as early in the boot process as possble, and
> # b) for all TTYs, 1 to 8 ?
>
> I have in /etc/rc.conf this for the gallant font:
>
> allscreens_flags="-f gallant"

Than you, Jens.

> That's the Sun Microsystems console font, simply unsurpassed,
> for those who remember. Sigh...

Yes, it is beautiful. It is hard to make a low-res raster font
avec serif and so well-shaped. And this font is not in the old-shool
font-pack:

<https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/>
(but the font index does not show all the fonts...)

How can one setup the TTYs with a high-DPI monitor? In Windows, I
simply set the size for my raster fonts to a multiple of the native
size, to have pixel doubling, tripling, or quadrupling. That way,
the fonts are rendered perfecly sharp. Is anything similar possible
in FreeBSD?

P.S. Why did you set the `#' character to prepend quoted lines?