Re: NetBSD 10 and framebuffer consoles setup vs 9.3 (font, multiple...)

[RVP <rvp%SDF.ORG@localhost>]

On Thu, 11 Apr 2024, Riccardo Mottola wrote:

> For 4K displays maybe, but on any laptop I have at hand - without prehaps a 
> "Retina" or equivalent display, the small font is readable enough and 
> actually the more information makes installing, merging files reading dmesg 
> much much easier. Up to my HD display on 22" standard font is fine.
> Maybe it is just which threshold you consider  "high enough".

On a laptop with a 14" screen and a 1920x1200 display, I find the default
8x16 font unreadable. And, the scrolling is unbearably slow.

> >  While installing, you can escape into the shell, then do:
> >
> >  wsconsctl -dw font=Boldface
>
> Will try at the next run - it works in normal boot.
> Perhaps an installer option could be also useful? like keyboard setup, 
> display setup.

Like Slackware, eh? Sure; plus, sometimes the kernel picks the
wrong font-size for the resolution (presented by DRMKMS, I think--genfb
doesn't seem to have this issue) and the console ends up with less
than 80x25 cells:

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2024/05/10/msg031151.html

On Thu, 11 Apr 2024, Staffan Thomén wrote:

> RVP wrote:
> >  and the system will now use the larger font if you have a high enough
> >  display. Otherwise, you would end up with an unreadable chars. on, say, 4K
> >  displays.
>
> Surely this should be against the display density? (i.e. DPI)

Well, DPI is tricky ;). I assume you mean the DPI you get from the
max. res. / display size? And, that the max. res. _actually_ covers
the whole screen, edge-to-edge?

> That of course means being able to read the DPI from somewhere, but isn't 
> that a thing that EDID does?

There's no DPI present in the EDID data, as far as I know (DisplayID
has horiz. and vert. pixel counts which could be used in combination
with the display size values). And, DPI changes based on current
display res., screen orientation, whether the H & V timings are
padded multiples of 8, etc.

-RVP