• Bug#1087696: fonts-spleen: "Spleen" not available to console-setup

    From Alex Myczko@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 10 20:20:01 2025
    Hi Paul

    Well mostly the fonts- packages install vector fonts of formats ttf or
    otf.

    The setfont command and your configure thing uses fonts from the package console-setup-linux,
    mostly compressed pcf font format (bitmap).

    Try dpkg -L console-setup-linux to see some fonts.

    Your best bet to cread pcf fonts are packages like: bitsnpicas and
    psftools (not packaged officially),
    but grab a copy from:

    http://bananas.debian.net/debian/psftools/

    Best,
    Alex

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  • From Alex Myczko@21:1/5 to All on Tue Apr 15 13:10:01 2025
    Hi Paul

    I kind of agree, and I also always wanted an easy way of having fonts.
    But bitmap fonts for framebuffer
    is a bit more complicated than just a font. setfont comes together with keyboards of all kinds (loadkyes).

    And for high resolution displays, I really want a setfont -d for most
    fonts (to be able to use the screen
    without magnifier).

    So there's /etc/default/console-setup (which can define a font, and that
    you could just simply overwrite)
    Installing the psf.gz (or any setfont compatible font) into /usr/share/consolefonts doesn't make it
    appear in the tui magically, there's some code processing: /var/lib/dpkg/info/console-setup-linux.list

    Here's some more console fonts: https://github.com/alexmyczko/ree/tree/master/fnt

    And I'd really like to have these, additionally to spleen:
    fonts-agave, fonts-topaz-unicode (easy as src is bdf, using bdf2psf), fonts-ocr-b, fonts-atarist (also bdf src), fonts-kode-mono,
    fonts-league-mono, fonts-tt2020, fonts-ferrite-core?

    Anton: maybe you have a better idea?

    Best,
    Alex

    Well mostly the fonts- packages install vector fonts of formats ttf or
    otf.

    The setfont command and your configure thing uses fonts from the
    package console-setup-linux,
    mostly compressed pcf font format (bitmap).

    Try dpkg -L console-setup-linux to see some fonts.

    But this is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Spleen *is* a console
    font (the package description says "monospace font for consoles and terminals", and the file list  - https://packages.debian.org/sid/all/fonts-spleen/filelist - shows
    compressed psfu files, compressed pcf files alongside the otf files).

    Maybe this bug needs to be reassigned to console-setup-linux if the
    only way for developers to distribute console fonts is to extend the console-setup-linux package, but it feels like it would be a more
    flexible system if one could install extra packages of fonts and see
    them appear in the choice.

    As an analogy, notice that people can install, say "fonts-dejavu" and
    the DejaVu fonts appear in tools such as fc-list. You don't find all
    the possible fonts getting packaged in "fontconfig". In a similar way,
    as an end user, I would expect to be able to install fonts-spleen, or fonts-ubuntu-console, and then be able to pick them by reconfiguring
    the console.


    Your best bet to cread pcf fonts are packages like: bitsnpicas and
    psftools (not packaged officially),
    but grab a copy from:

    http://bananas.debian.net/debian/psftools/

    Best,
    Alex

    --
    Alex Myczko <myczko@phys.ethz.ch> support: +41 44 633 26 68
    IT Services Group, HPT H 7 voice: +41 76 436 72 00
    Departement Physik, ETH Zurich
    CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland https://isg.phys.ethz.ch/

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