console text problems {sort of solved}

grx · Last edited by grx on Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:02 pm; edited 1 time in total

I've been playing with my installation on my laptop, trying to get the console resolution like it's done on the installation disk. The problem I'm running into is that whenever I change the framebuffer resolution to anything beyond 620x480, some of the letters crowd together. That is, a letter combination such as mo is not spaced so that the m and the o are completely separated. The installation disk boots up with a 1024x768 resolution, and the letters are all spaced correctly. Did I miss something in the install to get the console font rendering the right way? I actually messed something up the last time I compiled the kernel, and I don't get any text display at all when it boots now. I'll have to boot up the install disk and see if I can fix it, but in the mean time I can't get to the installation immediately.

Does anyone know if the kernel in the installation CD has something different about its framebuffer setup that I may not be aware of? So far I've tried using both vesafb and vesafb-tng, and included console framebuffer support in the kernel. I don't know where else to look, but I'll try to see if the console fonts are declared as the same thing between the two. Can anyone help?

grx · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 1:29 am Post subject:

OK, I've managed to get the text to display again, and in doing some comparisions, I recompiled the kernel with the same options in the livecd kernel, but still with the same problem. The only thing I can think of is that is has something to do with not having a splash= line in my grub.conf. Can anyone confirm the same problem at all? I'll look into what happens if I include a splash theme and see if that fixes it.

grx · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:01 am Post subject:

OK, next update: splashutils and all that didn't seem to do a thing. However, I noticed this time on boot that the text was just fine until partway through, when I could see the text adjust somehow, and after that I had the letter crowding. Does anyone recognize this symptom at all?

mr_roboto · n00b Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 4

im lost :S
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cyrillic · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:46 am Post subject:

grx · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:15 am Post subject:

Alright, if that's all confusing, let me try to explain a little better:

I have a laptop with an SXGA+ 1680x1050 screen. When I use the gentoo Installation media, it boots with a 1024x768 resolution into the console and looks great. After installing, it boots with a 620x480 resolution in the console, which looks fine.

I would like to have a smaller font in the console, and so I compiled the kernel to have framebuffer support, using either vesafb or vesafb-tng. 1680x1050 resolution is of course not supported by either of those frame buffers, but the 1024x768 fills the screen fine and looks great. In X, I can just use the proprietary nVidia drivers to get a nice resolution.

The kernel works just fine, and I can switch between resolutions with no trouble--800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024 all work. However, if I use anything but 620x480, some letter combinations don't have any space between the letters. mo, vw, and WM are all examples. What occurs is that the lit pixels from one letter end right where the pixels for the next letter start--there is no dark space separating the letters.

I have tried both vesafb and vesafb-tng, and both have the same problem. I also have noticed, the last time I booted, that the fonts look just fine at the beginning of the boot process, but partway through you can see a little change in the display, and from then on I have the crowded letters. I haven't yet pinpointed just where in the boot process it occurs. Oh, and as near as I can tell, I have the same settings compiled into the kernel as are in the installation disk: I'm currently set to use vesafb with the command vga=791 (which should be 1024x768 with 16bit color depth). I have also tried adding the line CONSOLE=/dev/tty1, like shows up in the install disk, and also emerging splash utils with the gentoo-installation theme as a splash background. Neither of these things changed anything.

I also looked in /etc/conf.d/consolefont, and it says "default8x16" both on my laptop and on the installation disk, so that doesn't seem to be the issue. I don't know if I have anything else strange compiled into the kernel--I checked the config file on the installation disk, and I think I have all the same settings in my config file (in the graphics/fonts areas, anyway).

Has no one ever seen this kind of thing happen before? It wasn't such a big deal, but since I can't figure out why it works fine with the install disk and not with the actuall installation, it's starting to bug me...

[EDIT:] The change during boot seems to occur at "Setting user font ...". As I said, /etc/conf.d/consolefont is set at "default8x16" as in the install media. Is there somewhere else this might be looking?

grx · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:51 am Post subject:

Alright, I have definitely pinpointed where the issue occurs. If I run rc-update del consolefont boot, then I no longer have the problem. Can anyone tell me where to look to see what consolefont is doing to mess things up?

nixnut · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:48 pm Post subject:

Moved from Installing Gentoo to Other Things Gentoo.
Not an installing gentoo problem
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grx · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:05 pm Post subject:

OK--the problem occurs only when I use consolefonts in the boot runlevel, and only with the default8x16 font. Other fonts look fine--I even increased the resolution I'm using and changed to the sun12x22 font. It looks great like that, but it still bugs me that the "default" font doesn't render correctly.

I did find that the installation medium does not use consolefonts, and so that's where the difference was coming from. I'd sure love to know if this is something that happens on anyone else's system or not.

linuxtuxhellsinki · l33t Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 700 Location: Hellsinki

I've that kind of problem in my desktop machine, that the fonts in konsole on X are together (like mn have no space between 'em). And I think I'd try some other fonts in that machine, maybe it's the fix for it ?

But the bigger problem that I've with in both that desktop & this laptop is my Alt+Gr is not working correctly or it's working like normal Alt. So I can't write dollar,euro,pound....etc. letters, all which're under Alt+Gr-something :roll:

& another thing I can't do is changing with Ctrl-Alt-F1 (-F6) to another terminal where keyboard is working just fine.

This problem came about 1.5 months ago when I updated systems on both machines & I haven't get rid of this problem cause I don't know where to look from anymore.
I was even get rid of PAM & some stuff cause I thought the problem was with it, but no way.

I'll be very grateful if someone can point to me where's the problem, it's not fun anymore while I can live with it

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monicajae · Guru Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 363 Location: Dorset, VT

Which kernel are you using? I know that with 2.6.18-r2 gentoo-sources, i can get 1680x1050@60 resolution at boot with vesafb-tng. I use lilo. I add an append line which looks like this: