[systemd-devel] [PATCH] vconsole: default to the kernel compiled-in font

[Kay Sievers]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com> wrote:
> Tom Gundersen (teg at jklm.no) said:
>> No longer override the default kernel font if nothing is specified in
>> vconsole.conf.
>>
>> The default kernel font[0] provides ISO-8859-1 and box characters. Users
>> of Arabic, Cyrilic or Hebrew must set a different font manually as these
>> character sets were provided by the old default font [1], but are not
>> any longer.
>
> I can see the rationale of fixing the default kernel font, but changing
> the default behavior to one that explicitly excludes a large number of
> configurations that had worked out of the box before is worrisome.

We should really work in that direction. Unconditionally over-loading
stuff from userspace makes not much sense I guess.

> Also, doesn't relying on the default kernel font mean you don't know
> what font you're actually getting? (I.e., if you boot with vgacon, vs
> kmscon, vs vesafb, vs (other), you may get different defaults.)

Not sure how much we should care about native vga fonts in hardware.

They should be all gone with kms drivers loaded, and even qemu has a
kms driver these days in the virtual screen it draws.

I would declare the kernel's defaults for native hardware vga
sufficient, ignoring possible differences to frame buffers a cosmetic
issue. Custom requirements for that can stuff unconditionally
overwrite the font.

So what's needed? An update to the in-kernel font? What's the delta
between the one that is already there and the minimum we need as the
default?

I think anything that needs a custom keymap or setting to be able to
make things work, can also rely on a custom font plugged in at the
same time? Maybe the in-kernel default is already good enough for
that?

Thanks,
Kay