setfont
load EGA/VGA console screen font
see also :
psfaddtable - unicode_start - loadunimap - mapscrn
Synopsis
setfont
[-O font+umap.orig] [-o font.orig] [-om
cmap.orig] [-ou umap.orig] [-N]
[font.new ...] [-m cmap] [-u umap] [-C
console] [-hH] [-v] [-V]
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examples
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description
The
setfont command reads a font from the file
font.new and loads it into the EGA/VGA character
generator, and optionally outputs the previous font. It can
also load various mapping tables and output the previous
versions.
If no args are
given (or only the option -N for some number
N), then a default (8xN) font is loaded (see
below). One may give several small fonts, all containing a
Unicode table, and setfont will combine them and load
the union. Typical use:
setfont
Load a default font.
setfont drdos8x16
Load a given font (here the
448-glyph drdos font).
setfont cybercafe -u
cybercafe
Load a given font that does not
have a Unicode map and provide one explicitly.
setfont LatArCyrHeb-19 -m
8859-2
Load a given font (here a
512-glyph font combining several character sets) and
indicate that one’s local character set is ISO
8859-2.
Note: if a font
has more than 256 glyphs, only 8 out of 16 colors can be
used simultaneously. It can make console perception worse
(loss of intensity and even some colors).
options
-h H
Override font height.
-m file
Load console map or Unicode
console map from file.
-o file
Save previous font in
file.
-O file
Save previous font and Unicode
map in file.
-om
file
Store console map in
file.
-ou
file
Save previous Unicode map in
file.
-u file
Load Unicode table describing
the font from file.
-C
console
Set the font for the indicated
console. (May require root permissions.)
-v
Be verbose.
-V
Print version and exit.
console maps
Several mappings are involved in the path from user program
output to console display. If the console is in utf8 mode (see
unicode_start(1)) then the kernel expects that user
program output is coded as UTF-8 (see utf-8(7)), and
converts that to Unicode (ucs2). Otherwise, a translation table
is used from the 8-bit program output to 16-bit Unicode values.
Such a translation table is called a Unicode console map.
There are four of them: three built into the kernel, the fourth
settable using the -m option of setfont. An escape
sequence chooses between these four tables; after loading a
cmap, setfont will output the escape sequence Esc (
K that makes it the active translation.
Suitable arguments for the -m option are for example
8859-1, 8859-2, ..., 8859-15, cp437,
..., cp1250.
Given the Unicode value of the symbol to be displayed, the kernel
finds the right glyph in the font using the Unicode mapping info
of the font and displays it.
Old fonts do not have Unicode mapping info, and in order to
handle them there are direct-to-font maps (also loaded using
-m) that give a correspondence between user bytes and font
positions. The most common correspondence is the one given in the
file trivial (where user byte values are used directly as
font positions). Other correspondences are sometimes preferable
since the PC video hardware expects line drawing characters in
certain font positions.
Giving a -m none argument inhibits the loading and
activation of a mapping table. The previous console map can be
saved to a file using the -om file option. These options
of setfont render mapscrn(8) obsolete. (However, it may be
useful to read that man page.)
files
/usr/share/consolefonts is the default font directory.
/usr/share/unimaps is the default directory for Unicode
maps. /usr/share/consoletrans is the default directory for
screen mappings. The default font is a file default (or
default8xN if the -N option was given for some number N)
perhaps with suitable extension (like .psf).
font formats
The standard Linux font format is the PSF font. It has a header
describing font properties like character size, followed by the
glyph bitmaps, optionally followed by a Unicode mapping table
giving the Unicode value for each glyph. Several other (obsolete)
font formats are recognized. If the input file has code page
format (probably with suffix .cp), containing three fonts with
sizes e.g. 8x8, 8x14 and 8x16, then one of the options -8 or -14
or -16 must be used to select one. Raw font files are binary
files of size 256*N bytes, containing bit images for each
of 256 characters, one byte per scan line, and N bytes per
character (0 < N <= 32). Most fonts have a width of
8 bits, but with the framebuffer device (fb) other widths can be
used.
font height
The program setfont has no built-in knowledge of VGA video
modes, but just asks the kernel to load the character ROM of the
video card with certain bitmaps. However, since Linux 1.3.1 the
kernel knows enough about EGA/VGA video modes to select a
different line distance. The default character height will be the
number N inferred from the font or specified by option.
However, the user can specify a different character height
H using the -h option.
note
PC video hardware allows one to use the "intensity" bit either to
indicate brightness, or to address 512 (instead of 256) glyphs in
the font. So, if the font has more than 256 glyphs, the console
will be reduced to 8 (instead of 16) colors.
unicode font maps
The correspondence between the glyphs in the font and Unicode
values is described by a Unicode mapping table. Many fonts have a
Unicode mapping table included in the font file, and an explicit
table can be indicated using the -u option. The program
setfont will load such a Unicode mapping table, unless a
-u none argument is given. The previous Unicode mapping
table will be saved as part of the saved font file when the -O
option is used. It can be saved to a separate file using the
-ou file option. These options of setfont render
loadunimap(8) obsolete.
The Unicode mapping table should assign some glyph to the
’missing character’ value U+fffd, otherwise missing characters
are not translated, giving a usually very confusing result.
Usually no mapping table is needed, and a Unicode mapping table
is already contained in the font (sometimes this is indicated by
the .psfu extension), so that most users need not worry about the
precise meaning and functioning of these mapping tables.
One may add a Unicode mapping table to a psf font using
psfaddtable(1).
see also
psfaddtable ,
unicode_start , loadunimap ,
utf-8, mapscrn