TTY console font in Virtualbox antiX installations.

[Member arzarra]

There is a persistent problem with TTY console font in antiX 19.4 and 21b2 (19.3 and earlier versions have it rarely).
Typical scenario: the system is installed to disk in VirtualBox, and then boots into runlevel 3 or 5 in console mode, without xorg. Result: huge font, long line distortions etc. If at the same time the console is “edged” with an antiX frame, then it becomes completely unusable, does not respond to keys, etc. The font is set to 16x32x512, regardless of the virtual monitor resolution, as well as boot parameters “vga=”, “dpi=”, “blacklist=VIDEO”, “xorg=safe” etc. Nothing helps at boot time. But after booting and login you can “setfont default8x16” and it works in the “frameless” console. The problem is sometimes observed on live systems loaded into runlevel 3 or switched to one of the TTY consoles (but not in gui terminal). This problem in antiX is observed in VirtualBox with VMSVGA, but not VBoxVGA.
On the attached screenshots you can see the “light” version of this problem with antiX 19.4-“net” installed in VirtualBox 6.1.26 and the “serious” version with 21b2 (the last screenshot).

• This topic was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by arzarra.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by arzarra.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by arzarra.

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[Member Xecure]

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On live (I am not sure if it also works on installed) use conwidth boot parameter.
Example:
quiet 3 conwidth=20,4

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member arzarra]

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Xecure wrote:

On live (I am not sure if it also works on installed) use conwidth boot parameter.
Example: quiet 3 conwidth=20,4

On installed “quiet 3 conwidth=20,4”, “3 conwidth=20,4”, “conwidth=20,4” do not work 🙁

[Member Xecure]

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I got VB set up on non-efi boot and display VMSVGA, booted antiX 19.4 full with boot parameters
quiet conwidth=4
I then installed it on the VM using the normal antix-installer (I haven’t tested to install it using the cli-installer).
After install and rebooting, the console width on the installed system is the same I set on the live system.
I checked the live set-console-width script, and it edits the file /etc/default/console-setup
The only changes I could see when I used the conwidth parameter are these variables in the file:

FONTFACE="VGA"
FONTSIZE="8x16"

Edit that file (/etc/default/console-setup), make those changes, and reboot (forget about the other parameters and use your original boot parameters on installed).

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member arzarra]

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Xecure wrote:

Edit that file (/etc/default/console-setup), make those changes, and reboot (forget about the other parameters and use your original boot parameters on installed).

This does not work on the installed system (screenshot 1). Boot parameter “conwidth” does nothing. Absolutely.
“setfont “default8x16“” is working and does not modifies /etc/default/console-setup at all (screenshots 2-3).

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by arzarra.

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[Member Xecure]

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Screenshot 1 still shows
FONTSIZE="16x32"
and not
FONTSIZE="8x16"

Change it to the values I shared and reboot. It works for me on installed on VM (already did this in the last post).
Reference: https://wiki.debian.org/accessibility#Console_fonts
What you are trying to get are smaller fonts, not larger fonts.

arzarra wrote:

If at the same time the console is “edged” with an antiX frame

This is only for live. You remove splasht boot parameter and you wont see the console decorations.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member arzarra]

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Xecure wrote:

Change it to the values I shared and reboot.

In the end, after editing and checking, it worked on both installed systems. However, this solution requires checking and manual editing after each installation. And does not give an understanding why in some cases the correct font size is written to that file, and in others the wrong one. This looks like a bug and needs to be fixed reliably in the installation system image.

[Member Xecure]

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You are right that the vga boot parameter and the F7 console size boot menu needs to change, but unfortunately I don’t have the technical knowledge to do so, so I can only recommend workarounds.
Also, the fontsize boot parameter seems to be of little use and the more obscure conwidth parameter is the recommended one for setting console font size (but not console resolution).

I recommend you use the conwidth=4 boot parameter when running live on VB before installing, so that the change (done by the boot parameter) continues working after installing.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Anonymous]

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quiet conwidth=4

quiet 3 conwidth=20,4

I believe we should EXPECT that either of the above will fail to produce the desired outcome.
To confirm, you can search the forum (and perhaps the “oldarchive” posts) for posts by BitJam discussing conwidth, but here’s my recollection:

conwidth = “console column width” and, at runtime, the handler script must consider the DPI to calculate proper sizing.
Its calculation involves rounding, toward arriving at a ranged integer value which matches one of a set of fixed values.
I don’t recall the exact range of values (80–180, or 80-210?)

When you specify a “conwidth=” value, think of it in terms of “I am requesting an XX-character console width.
Given an input like the 2 quoted values above, the script probably cannot “make sense of” the supplied value, so it applies the ranged minimum value (and you wind up with an 80-char-wide console and a surprisingly large fontface).

VMSVGA versus VBSVGA

suggestion: Retest, after choosing VBSVGA within the VB machine settings config.
For VirtualBox 6.1, and perhaps other versions as well, I learned that arandr (and xrandr, IIRC) would “gray out // disable” most of the alternative sizes unless VBSVGA had been specified. IIRC, under VBSVGA, both the bootcode and the antiX console-setting utilities worked properly.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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If I remember correctly, If you want VMSVGA with an installed antiX-19.4 or antiX-21, you’ll need to install virtualbox guest packages.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by anticapitalista. Reason: corrected version

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member arzarra]

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VirtualBox version of VMWare video card in antiX 19.4 works fine as a video acceleration device, glxinfo reports standard VMWare card, glxgears shows high FPS etc. Only the TTY console fails to work properly. In the similar testing minimalist configuration of pure Debian 10 or 11 everything works flawless, TTY console resolution is OK. Therefore, it is antiX that misinterprets some data reported by the module vmwgfx during boot time (IMHO). Moreover, the resolution becomes wrong not after the system report that it has found this module, but during “waiting for /dev to be fully populated”.

If you add “blacklist=vmwgfx” to boot string, antiX live (all editions) boots and works fine, TTY console is OK. Video acceleration works too, glxgears shows similar numbers of FPS, glxinfo reports hardware acceleration to be “yes”. But glxinfo report information is different.
If you install antiX from “net” version of iso without blacklisting vmwgfx (and with corrupted console), and then add “blacklist=vmwgfx” to boot string, antiX works fine.

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So the FINAL SOLUTION is:
1. During boot of antiX live cd/dvd disks you must add “blacklist=vmwgfx” to boot string.
2. If you forget blacklisting VMWare video card module during boot time, do “setfont default8x16” or simply “setfont“. If after that you decide to install antiX onto hard disk, you must select “VGA” and “8×16” during install process (YES to “Do you want to set up console layout?” etc).
3. If you made mistakes twice (during live boot and during install) you must add “blacklist=vmwgfx” to boot string, boot into antiX, change FONTFACE=”VGA” and FONTSIZE=”8×16″ in /etc/default/console-setup , remove blacklisting from boot string (if you modified the config file, not grub menu field) and reboot.
———————————————————————————————————————-

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Thanks @arzarra

Here is another way. Note this is only needed when using VirtualBox VMSVGA.

Running live, F4 choose Conwidth=off
Install
Done!

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

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