New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

Carlwill · 2009-10-28 20:02:35

I built a new system from scratch today and noticed something strange. When it booted into runlevel 3 (no GUI), the test was very small. I don't understand why or what cause this. The font is simply annoying and too small for me to read. It happens 1/2 through the Arch boot process. It changes from normal sized CLI font to very tiny font. I also notice when I try to use 'vi' to open a file, it tells me the terminal is too wide. I think this is due to the font or something. I simply installed a base system group and selected all the default packages.

**Correction - the "Terminal Too Wide" message is only in 'vi' and not 'vim'.

Any ideas?

egan · 2009-10-28 20:05:51

This is called kernel mode setting, where the framebuffer can be displayed at native resolution. To get rid of it, append 'nomodeset' to the end of your kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

Carlwill · 2009-10-28 20:12:57

So I am confused. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I can edit my menu.lst file and add that to the end of the kernel line parameter but I would like to understand it. I have never seen any other system do it before and I am guessing it happened to me this time since I installed GRUB manually for RAID via the Arch Wiki.

hbekel · 2009-10-28 20:36:28

KMS support has been added to the kernel just recently, which is probably why you haven't seen it before. It's basically a good thing, because now the video mode switching (e.g. when you switch from X to a text console) is supposed to be much faster, since it's handled by the kernel directly. It's a new thing, and not yet supported by all video drivers, but it will also help to make stuff like resume/suspend work better in the future.

keenerd · 2009-10-28 21:12:23

Why not just use a nicer font? Install terminus-font and edit rc.conf.
Look for the consolefont line, change it to something like this:

CONSOLEFONT="ter-120n.psf.gz"

That way you get a high resolution framebuffer and an easy to read font. Once you try this you'll never want to go back to the old ugly no-mode console.

unregistered · 2009-11-01 06:12:51

egan wrote:

This is called kernel mode setting, where the framebuffer can be displayed at native resolution. To get rid of it, append 'nomodeset' to the end of your kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

hey, the font remains even after appending the line to menu.lst. Firefox, the login screen, acroread, xchm and a host of other programs still use the smaller font instead

pyokagan · 2009-11-01 11:45:16

hey, the font remains even after appending the line to menu.lst. Firefox, the login screen, acroread, xchm and a host of other programs still use the smaller font instead

Check if your screen resolution(s) are properly detected.

If it is, I would think that there is a problem with your DPI settings.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-28 20:02:35

New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

#2 2009-10-28 20:05:51

Re: New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

#3 2009-10-28 20:12:57

Re: New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

#4 2009-10-28 20:36:28

Re: New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

#5 2009-10-28 21:12:23

Re: New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

#6 2009-11-01 06:12:51

Re: New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

#7 2009-11-01 11:45:16

Re: New Install Has Very Small CLI Text

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