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SETFONT(8) International Support SETFONT(8)
NAME
setfont - load EGA/VGA console screen font
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]
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 explic-
itly.
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).
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.
CONSOLE MAPS
Several mappings are involved in the path from user program output to console dis-
play. 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 con-
sole 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.)
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 pro-
gram 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 con-
fusing result.
Usually no mapping table is needed, and a Unicode mapping table is already con-
tained 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 map-
ping tables.
One may add a Unicode mapping table to a psf font using psfaddtable(1).
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.
FILES
/lib/kbd/consolefonts is the default font directory. /lib/kbd/unimaps is the
default directory for Unicode maps. /lib/kbd/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).
SEE ALSO
psfaddtable(1), unicode_start(1), loadunimap(8), utf-8(7), mapscrn(8)
11 Feb 2001 SETFONT(8)
Generated by $Id: phpMan.php,v 4.55 2007/09/05 04:42:51 chedong Exp $ Author: Che Dong
On Apache/1.3.41 (Unix) PHP/5.2.5 mod_perl/1.30 mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a
Under GNU General Public License
2009-01-10 10:56 @38.103.63.58 CrawledBy CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)