1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
|
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
<title>fonty-rg</title>
<base target="_self">
</head>
<body>
<a name="toc"><b>contents</b></a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#required">other programs you need</a></li>
<li><a href="#download">sources for other programs</a></li>
<li><a href="#contents">contents of fonty-rg</a></li>
<li><a href="#prepare">preparations</a></li>
<li><a href="#createfont">creating your own font definition file</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#txt-explain">how a definition line looks like</a></li>
<li><a href="#limit-explain">how many definitions are allowed</a></li>
<li><a href="#hexcount-explain">how hexadecimal counting works</a></li>
<li><a href="#ranges-explain">what ranges we might meet</a></li>
<li><a href="#hex2uni-rules">rules for some HEX ranges</a></li>
<li><a href="#txt-contents">contents of the definition file</a></li>
<li><a href="#position-explain">how font positions and limits are
created</a></li>
<li><a href="#create-summary">summary</a></li>
<li><a href="#create-hints">practical hints</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#buildfont">(re)building fonts</a></li>
<li><a href="#buildacm">creating your userdefined acm kernel map</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#acm-explain">how an acm map looks like</a></li>
<li><a href="#256acm-simple">256 positions, simple definitions</a></li>
<li><a href="#512acm-merge">512 positions, merged definitions</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#usefont">using your font on console</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#usefont-all">general procedure to use a font</a></li>
<li><a href="#usefont-off">procedure for official combinations</a></li>
<li><a href="#usefont-mix">procedure for own mixtures</a></li>
<li><a href="#usefont-switch">switching between font contents</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#conventions">names for files dealing with fonts</a></li>
<li><a href="#chain">how the whole chain works</a></li>
<li><a href="#startsystem">how your system looks like after booting</a></li>
<li><a href="#messages">error and other messages</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#build-9thcol">9th column displayed incorrectly</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="required"><b>other programs you need</b></a>
<br>the first three are usually already present on your system
<br><b>comment</b>
<ol>
<li>a shell working as /bin/sh</li>
<li>kbd or console-tools/console-data</li>
<li>perl-5.001 or later (expected as /usr/bin/perl)</li>
<!--
<li>python-2.x for extra (expected as /usr/bin/python)</li>
-->
</ol>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="download"><b>where to get the sources for other programs</b></a>
<br>if you are running a distribution, search at their ftp server
<br>if you are compiling from source here the home
<ul>
<li><b>bash-2.05a</b>
<br><a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/">
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/</a>
</li>
<li><b>kbd-1.06</b>
<br><a href="ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/utils/kbd/">
ftp://win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/utils/kbd/</a>
<br><a href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/keyboards/">
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/keyboards/</a>
</li>
<li><b>console-tools-0.2.3</b>
<br><b>console-data-1999.08.29</b>
<br><a href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/keyboards/">
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/keyboards/</a>
<br><a href="ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/console-tools/">
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/console-tools/</a>
<br><a href="ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/console-data/">
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/console-data/</a>
</li>
<li><b>perl-5.6.1</b>
<br><a href="http://www.perl.com/">
http://www.perl/com/</a>
</li>
</li>
<li><b>fonty-1.0</b>
<br><a href="http://qrczak.home.ml.org/programy/linux/fonty/">
http://qrczak.home.ml.org/programy/linux/fonty/</a>
<br><a href="ftp://ftp.debian.org/fonty-1.0.orig.tar.gz">
ftp://ftp.debian.org/fonty-1.0.orig.tar.gz</a>
</li>
<!--
<li><b>python-2.2</b>
<br><a href="ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/2.2/">
ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/2.2/</a>
-->
</ul>
<br><b>comment</b>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="contents"><b>contents of fonty-rg</b></a>
<ol>
<li><b>top directory</b>
<br>build.sh (shell)
<br> wrapper for building the fonts
<br>choose (perl)
<br> select needed pictures for a font
<br>compact (perl)
<br> putting same pictures in the font together
<br>vga (perl)
<br> sorting characters according to pixels in the 8th
column
<br>*.psf.gz
<br> precompiled compressed, ready-to-use console fonts
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
<br>hex2bdf.pl (perl) unused
<br> making the .bdf font files
<br>hex2sbf.py (python) unused
<br> making the .sbf font files
<br>mergehex.py (python) unused
<br> putting the same characters together
<br>sbf-filter-nochars.py (python) unused
<br>
<br>sbf2hex.py (python) unused
<br> extracting hex values from sbf fonts
-->
</li>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<li><b>subdirectory /charsets</b>
<br>cz2t.sh (shell)
<br> remove colums from given file
<br>LatCyrGr (contains Latin, Cyrillic, Greek)
<br> table hex to Unicode
<br>*.txt (contains what the filename says)
<br> =xx U+xxxx OFFICIAL NAME: table hex to Unicode
<br>chavo.chars (contains special mixture East Europe, Esperanto)
<br> =xx U+xxxx OFFICIAL NAME: table hex to Unicode
<br>graphics
<br> U+xxxx: Unicode values for creating a box
</li>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<li><b>subdirectory /source</b>
<br>*.sbf
<br> glyphs: pictures how each Unicode value looks
<br> contains the range of values the filename says
</li>
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="prepare"><b>preparations</b></a>
<ol>
<li>unpack the fonty-rg package into your desired directory
<br>you will get a directory called fonty-rg
<li>unpack the fonty-1.0 package
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
<li>for extras check you have an executable /usr/bin/python
<br>alternately check the first line in the python scripts
-->
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="createfont"><b>creating your own font definition file</b></a>
<br>font defintion files are simple text files in /charsets
<br>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="txt-explain"><b>how a definition line looks like</b></a>
<br>
<pre>
=HEX | U+number | # OFFICIAL NAME
------+----------+--------------------
=20 | U+0020 | # SPACE
=21 | U+0021 | # EXCLAMATION MARK
</pre>
<ol>
<li><b>=</b>
<br>is only a mark helping to catch this number in scripts
</li>
<li><b>20</b> and <b>21</b>
<br>are the hexadecimal values as `man ascii` or `man iso8859_x` show
</li>
<li><b>U+</b>
<br>the signal that this plus the following number is a Unicode value
</li>
<li><b>0020</b> and <b>0021</b>
<br>Unicode numbers, always together with <b>U+</b> they make the
Unicode values associated with a picture/glyph
</li>
<li><b>#</b>
<br>comment sign for the following description
</li>
<li><b>SPACE</b> and <b>EXCLAMATION MARK</b>
<br>are the official names of those characters
<br>Such comments help if you are dealing with characters for a
foreign language or seldom used ones, so you do not know their
meaning by heart.
</li>
</ol>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<a name="limit-explain"><b>how many definitions are allowed</b></a>
<br>Every line in such a text file which is not beginning with a #
comment sign is a definition line and you can have either maximal
256 or maximal 512 of different definitions. Finally a defintion
always ends up in a picture, the glyph. And the lines in your
text file are only roughly an estimation whether you are within the
limit or already exeeding it. If you want to define for example a
font which contains iso8859-1 and also cyrillic letters, somewhere
in your text file you will have these 2 lines:
<br> 1 line for latin capital letter A (which is U+0041)
<br> 1 line for cyrillic capital letter A (which is U+0410)
<br>
<br>There are separate pictures for both of them, but when you see them
you will realize that both pictures are the same and therefore
your 2 lines only count as 1 defintion. Later, when you call the
build.sh script to build your font, the compact script will take
care, that all lines which have the same picture are put into one
defintion; in our example it will do something like this
<br> instead of [U+0041] picture and [U+0410] picture
<br> do [U+0041] [U+0410] picture (both is capital A)
<br>
<br>Usually you will not need more than 256 definitions. But in case you
have put a lot into it and suddenly realize that you are beyond
256, don't worry, then it will make a 512-table. After 512, however,
is the end with this kind of tables.
<br><b>comment</b>
<!-- We should have more than 512 somehow -->
<br>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="hexcount-explain"><b>how hexadecimal counting works</b></a>
<br>Now lets have a short look onto the hexadecimal values
(the HEX in our examples above). They are counted like this:
<br>
<pre>
00 ___10 ___20 from 00 to 09 and 0A to 0F (end of 0)
01 | 11 | 21 from 10 to 19 and 1A to 1F (end of 1)
.. | .. | .. from 20 to 29 and 2A to 2F (end of 2)
09 | 19 | 29
0A | 1A | 2A you can best remember if you just speak
.. | .. | .. the numbers separately, like this:
0F | 1F | 2F one E, one F, two zero, two one ....
|___| |___| |__ and so on
</pre>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="ranges-explain"><b>what ranges we might meet</b></a>
<br>Counting down in this way we can now split the long row into several
parts which have special meanings/purposes, and doing this we get
ranges. (Those ranges make it just a bit easier if we want to speak
about a certain number of values which are treated equally). Ranges
which are quite famous are these:
<br>
<pre>
00 # NUL --+ control characters (essential terminal
.. .. | controlling characters like bell, carriage
1F # UNIT SEPARATOR --+ return, end of transmission ...)
20 # SPACE --+
.. .. | ascii characters
7F # DELETE --+
80 # blink --+ control characters (additional terminal
.. .. | controlling characters like bold, underline,
9F # --+ reverse ...)
A0 # NO-BREAK SPACE --+
.. .. | iso8859 characters
FF # subset dependend--+
</pre>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="hex2uni-rules"><b>rules for some HEX ranges</b></a>
<br>For ascii and parts of iso8859 range the Unicode number is equal
to the HEX number, just put two zeros in front of it, so your lines
would look like this:
<br>
<pre>
=20 U+0020 -+
=21 U+0021 |
... | the ascii range is the same everywhere
=7E U+007E |
=7F U+007F -+
=A0 U+00A0 -+
=A1 U+00A1 |
... no | in the iso range it does not always continue like this;
| here the Unicode number depends on what the subset says
| it should look like. For example
=A4 U+00A4 # CURRENCY in iso8859-1
=A4 U+20AC # EURO SIGN in iso8859-15
Unicode values for a subset can for example be
looked up in the other .txt files in /charsets
=00 U+0000 -+ the range of essential controls
... |
=1E U+001E |
=1F U+001F -+
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
as far as I got it essential controls are never displayed, because
these characters are producing actions which conflict with displaying.
It is for example impossible to show a character if the command is
to make a beep.
-->
=80 U+ -+ the range of additional controls
... |
=9F U+ -+
<!--
as far as I got it these can be used to display whatever special symbols
you want, but usually some symbols for drawing lines and boxes are placed
here.
-->
</pre>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="txt-contents"><b>contents of the definition file</b></a>
<br>Your font file can keep whatever pictures (glyphs) you like to have
produced; but please remember that people outside are mostly using
official character maps like iso8859-1 or iso8859-15. And if you go
and mix the characters of different sets those outside will see only
strange rubbish. You can for example only replace the currency sign
by the euro sign in iso8859-1 and make your myfont.psf from that.
If you now create a text containing "1/4 euro" and send it off to
other people, those who use the -1 subset will see "1/4 currency"
and those with the -15 subset see "capital OE ligature euro".
These are called conflicting characters, because the same HEX value
has a different Unicode value (and therefore a different picture) in
another iso8859 subset.
<br>But you can of course have both full character sets in your font with
lines for all conflicting characters. In our example here it means,
you first write all defintions for the -1 subset and then write all
definitions for the conflicting characters of the -15 subset. (in that
case you would already see when creating your text that the combination
"1/4 euro" is not possible and you would end up in "0.25 cent").
<br>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="position-explain"><b>how font positions and limits are created</b>
</a>
<br>Now uncompress the chavo.psf.gz font in the top directory of fonty-rg;
this is a nearly completely filled up font. Then extract the builtin
Unicode character table with this command:
<br> psfgettable chavo.psf chavo.builtin.table
<br>
<br>Open the chavo.builtin.table in your editor. Note, it has 259 lines,
the first 3 lines are comments so they do not count: 259-3=256 lines,
yes this is the first limit. Now scroll down with your eyes on the
first column and you will see, that this follows the counting you
already learned - but here we have in front of it 0x0.
<br>We need the 0x0 in front here because, if this would be a simple
hexadecimal notation with only 0x in front, there would be a definite
end at 0xFF (F is the last one we have) and we would never be able to
make a font with more than 256 definitions. But the next limit was 512,
and such a font going beyond 256 definitions would continue now like
this: 0x0FF and then 0x100, 0x101, 0x102 ..
So the first 256 have 0 as first number, the second 256 have 1 as
first number (the counting sheme is the same as we learned, it just
has one number more in front).
<br>
<br>This first column is also called the font position and it is needed
to find the picture (glyph). If your program tells the screen driver,
now spit out the word "error" you expect the screen driver does not
need ages for searching "where the heck in this file might be the o,
ah here, no this looks more like a zero, just hold on ..."
<br>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="create-summary"><b>summary</b></a>
<br>With the lines which you write in your font definition text, you tell
what Unicode value should be associated whith the HEX value of
that character, and the comments behind it describe its official
name (and if you know this character you also know how the glyph
looks). Unicode values which turn out to have glyphs looking the
same, will later be put together to make a single definition from your
two defintion lines. So this single definition occupies only a single
font position. You can either have a font with maximal 256 font
positions or a font with maximal 512 font positions.
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="create-hints"><b>practical hints</b></a>
<ol>
<li>take an already existing defintion file as starting point
</li>
<li>copy that one to a file with your desired name
</li>
<li>at the bottom of your new definition file add additional lines
<br>you might consider inserting a # comment line with description
<br>this way it is easier to take it as template for new ones
</li>
<li>all iso8859 text files can be easily examined with diff
</li>
<li>definition lines which are identical must not be repeated
<br>you need for example the ascii range only once
<br>some of the general ones from iso range are also identical
</li>
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="buildfont"><b>(re)building the fonts</b></a>
<ol>
<li>change into the fonty-rg/ directory and execute
</li>
<li> ./build.sh
<br>it might take a while until you see some messages
<!-- at least on my slow P200 system, so don't CTRL+C -->
<br>you will get the new built fonts in this directory
<br>the are named <purpose>.psf.gz
<br>they will be written over the ones comming with this package
</li>
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="buildacm"><b>creating your userdefined acm kernel map</b>
<br>If your font mixes just all characters which you find nice looking and
you want to display them besides eachother, you can not use an acm
kernel map which only contains ranges of official characters. So you
need to make your own acm map.
<br>
<br>There are basically two ways what the kernel makes out of the bytes
it receives from a program when looking up values in the acm map.
<ol>
<li>it simply displays what the font has for that value
<br>this is called direct-to-font
<br>and it looks like: (for) 0x8F (display) 0x8F
<br>an example is ..consoletrans/trivial
</li>
<li>it displays the glyph of the Unicode value for that value
<br>this is called user-to-unicode, where user means program
<br>and it looks like: (for) 0x8f (display the) U+008f (glyph)
<br>examples are ..consoletrans/8859-x_to_uni.trans
</li>
</ol>
We would not need all the Unicode numbers if we simply want the kernel to
display direct-to-font, so this case is less interesting for us.
<br>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="acm-explain"><b>how an acm map looks like</b></a>
<br>As a general rule for our acm map we can use lines like these, which
are the most flexible way of writing (as they allow comments):
<pre>
0x000 U+fffd -+ this is the default for "unknown character"
... | for 256 positions
0x0ff U+ -+
0x100 U+ -+
... | for 512 positions
0x1ff U+ -+
^----------------- internal value which a program sends to be displayed
^--------------- 3 digits for 512 positions but don't harm for 256
^--------- Unicode value for the glyph which is printed
</pre>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<a name="256acm-simple"><b>256 positions, simple definitions</b></a>
<br>for an acm map which deals with 256 positions and only have definition
lines which are not merged into one definition, you can do this
<ol>
<li>take the text file you created in the /charsets directory
</li>
<li>replace all "=" signs with "0x0"
</li>
<li>delete the official name explanation
</li>
<li>fill up the missing counting values in the first column
<br>these might be the essential and additional control ranges
</li>
<li>give the first value the Unicode value for unknown character
<br>like this: 0x000 U+FFFD
<br>you always see this if a requested character is not in the font
</li>
<li>you can specify an alternate if the font does not have the glyph
<br>in the line in question just add a second Unicode value
<br>like this: 0x04a U+20AC U+004A
<br>means if you don't find the euro sign display the currency sign
</li>
<li>HEX values which you did not define must stand alone
<br>like this: 0x003
<br>means no picture if the program sends these bytes
<br>this is necessary to keep the order according to your font
</li>
<li>save it under a name related to your font like <your_font>.acm
<br>the .acm will reflect that this is an acm kernel mapping
<br>for kbd this will finally go to unimaps/
<br>for console-tools it finally goes to consoletrans/
</li>
</ol>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<a name="512acm-merge"><b>512 positions, merged definitions</b></a>
<br>If you have up to 512 definitions which are all pointing to a different
picture/glyph, you just continue according to what you did with the
first 256 positions. So: go down the whole HEX counting, leave the
Unicode value empty if you did not specify a glyph, and maybe add an
alternate Unicode value to display if the glyph is not in the font.
<br>
<br>If you have definition lines which will be merged into one line, this
means that you want to alternately display two different character sets.
And this again means you must change the acm kernel map first.
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
I am really not sure about how to write the acm for merged lines.
Chavo did not help as it is not designed for this weird kind of display.
-->
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="usefont"><b>using your font on console</b></a>
<br>for the first test you can keep the font in the fonty-rg directory
<br>
<br><a name="usefont-all"><b>general procedure to use a font</b>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br>This assumes you did not put the screen driver in utf8 mode
<br>To get your own font working you might need the following components
<ol>
<li>your font of course
<br>- with kbd: setfont <your_font>.psf.gz
<br>- with console-tools: consolechars <your_font>.psf.gz
</li>
<li>a screen driver translation map hex to Unicode to find the glyph
<br>only needed if the font does not have a builtin Unicode map
<br>- with kbd: setfont -u <fitting>.trans
<br>- with console-tools: consolechars -u <fitting>.sfm
</li>
<li>a userdefined acm kernel map for the (sub)set you want to use
<br>- with kbd: setfont -m <desired_set>.uni
<br>- with console-tools: consolechars -m <desired_set>.acm
</li>
<li>the command to switch to the userdefined kernel acm map
<br>general for defining G0 to keep it: echo -e "\033(K"
<br>general for defining G1 to keep it: echo -e "\033)K"
<br>- kbd: not needed for G0 (included in "-m")
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
if I see that correctly a G1 defining needs extra steps
0. setfont -m ... [which auto-defines G0 for userdefined]
1. G1 echo
2. G0 echo to the one we want have for G0 then like latin1
-->
<br>- console-tools: not needed for G0, G1 defining with --g1
</li>
</ol>
<br><a name="usefont-off"><b>procedure for official combinations</b></a>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br>if your font contains a combination of official character sets
<br>like chavo combines the officials latin1,2,3 and koi8-r
<ol>
<li>- load your font: consolechars or setfont <your_font>.psf.gz
<li>fonty-rg fonts have a hex to Unicode screen driver map builtin
<br>means you normally do not need an external screen driver map
<br>with kbd: -u ..consoletrans/<fitting>.trans
<br>with console-tools: -u ..consoletrans/<fitting>.sfm
</li>
<li>- load the momentarily desired userdefined acm kernel map
<br>- kbd: setfont -m ..unimaps/<desired>.uni
<br>- console-tools: consolechars -m ..consoletrans/<desired>.acm
<br>for example to get the koi8-r from the chavo font: koi8-r.uni|.acm
<br>Notes:
<br>Some kbd .uni maps like the iso0x.uni do not work, to get this work
correctly you can download console-data and copy the .acm files
from /consoletrans to the share/kbd/unimaps/ directory.
<br>This is unique for all ttyX terminals of the system which means
you can't activate another userdefined map at the same time
</li>
<li>kbd and console-tools include the G0 defining when using "-m .."
<br>so G0 defining in an extra step is not needed
<br>console-tools have an option "--g1" to define G1 instead of G0
</li>
</ol>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="usefont-mix"><b>procedure for own mixtures</b></a>
<br>if your font is a mixture not corresponding to official sets
<br>like exchange in iso8859-1 only the currency by euro
<ol>
<li>- load your font: consolechars or setfont <your_font>.psf.gz
<li>fonty-rg fonts have a hex to Unicode screen driver map builtin
<br>means you normally do not need an external screen driver map
<br>with kbd: -u ..consoletrans/<fitting>.trans
<br>with console-tools: - ..consoletrans/<fitting>.sfm
</li>
<li>then you need to load your special extracted acm kernel map
<br>- kbd: setfont -m <your_font>.uni
<br>- console-tools: consolechars -m <your_font>.acm
</li>
<li>kbd and console-tools include the G0 defining when using "-m .."
<br>so G0 defining in an extra step is not needed
</li>
</ol>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br><a name="usefont-switch"><b>switching between font contents</b></a>
<br>You might have a font which contains characters for several
different character sets, like the chavo font is able to display
4 character sets. With the command for your userdefined acm kernel
map you already said which of those character sets should be used
in the beginning. Now we see how to get our font display another
character set.
<br>
<br>In all we have 4 acm kernel maps which we can switch to
<br>and 2 (kind of) variables which hold the defined acm kernel map.
<br>Those 2 variables are G0 and G1 and their initial value is predefined,
but that is just for convenience and we can always define them new.
<br>
<ol>
<li>predefined value for G0: latin1
<br>defining G0 variable to hold a special acm map
<br>G0 to ISO latin1 with `echo -en "\033(B"`
<br>G0 to IBM PC 743 with `echo -en "\033(U"`
<br>G0 to DEC VT100 with `echo -en "\033(0"`
<br>G0 to userdefined with `echo -en "\033(K"`
</li>
<li>predefined value for G1: DEC VT100
<br>defining G1 variable to hold a special acm map
<br>G1 to ISO latin1 with `echo -en "\033)B"`
<br>G1 to IBM PC 743 with `echo -en "\033)U"`
<br>G1 to DEC VT100 with `echo -en "\033)0"`
<br>G1 to userdefined with `echo -en "\033)K"`
</li>
</ol>
<br>A terminal always starts with the predifined G0 value, if we don't
like that value we define the variable to hold another acm map.
Once our two G0 and G1 values are ok, we can switch between them with
<br>
<ol>
<li>switch to G0 with key press: CTRL+O (ctrl and capital O together)</li>
<li>switch to G1 with key press: CTRL+N (ctrl and capital N together)</li>
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<br><a name="system-save"><b>final system adjustments</b></a>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br>if your tests succeeded and you want to keep your versions
<ol>
<li>separating them from your systems fonts you might use /usr/local
</li>
<li>make directories corresponding to your systems shared ones
</li>
<li>copy your new font to the consolefonts/ directory
<br>you might consider to use the .psf and .psfu naming sheme
<br>it is easier to see from the fonts name whether a table is builtin
<br>if you stripped out some builtin hex to Unicode tables
</li>
<li>copy your new translation maps to consoletrans/ and/or unimaps/
<br>you might consider to use the .acm and .sfm naming sheme
<br>it is easier to see from the maps name when it is used
</li>
</ol>
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br>if you decide to work with fonty-rg more often
<ol>
<li>copy fonty-rgs scripts to bin/
</li>
<li>if not yet present add this directory to your PATH variable
</li>
<li>in share/ make a directory called fonty-rg
</li>
<li>copy fonty-rgs directory /source to share/fonty-rg/
</li>
<li>if you like do alike for the /charset directory
</li>
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="conventions"><b>names for files dealing with fonts</b></a>
<ul>
<li>.<b>acm</b> map
<br>application charset map, also screen map or console map
<br>translation table hex|dec|oct value to Unicode value
<br>used by the kernel to translate the bytes received from programs
<br>stored by console-tools in ..consoletrans/*.acm
<br>stored by kbd in ..consoletrans/*.trans or without .trans
</li>
<hr noshade>
<br>formats depend on which program was used to create the file
<li><b>.bdf</b>
<br>contains glyphs (pictures) for each Unicode value
<br>used by uni-vga package as base file to create fonts
</li>
<li><b>.sbf</b>
<br>contains glyphs (pictures) for each Unicode value
<br>used by the fonty packages as base file to create fonts
</li>
<hr noshade>
<li><b>.sfm</b>
<br>Unicode screen font map, also unciode(-to-font) map or unimap
<br>table with tranlations from hex|dec value into Unicode value
<br>used by the screen driver for fonts without a builtin table
<br>stored by console-tools in ..consoletrans/*.sfm
<br>stored by kbd in ..unimaps/*.uni or without .uni
</li>
<hr noshade>
<li><b>.psf</b>
<br>the ready-to-use console font, uncompressed
<br>kbd package uses this for fonts without builtin translation map
<br>fonty-rg uses this for fonts with builtin maps
<br>stored by console-tools and kbd in ..consolefonts/
</li>
<li><b>.psfu</b>
<br>special for kbd package to indicate a builting translation map
<br>stored by kbd in ..consolefonts/*.psfu.gz
</li>
<li><b>?</b>
<br>raw font in binary format
<br>used if you start your system with a frambuffer supporting kernel
<br>can not be saved and reloaded with the old.font options
<br>raw fonts can be converted by font2psf (Martin Lohner, SUSE)
</li>
</ul>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<pre>
<a name="chain"><b>how the whole chain works</b></a>
<br>kernel = lot of other things + console driver
<br>console driver = keyboard driver + screen driver
<br>
<ol>
<li>fingers press keys
</li>
<li>keyboard hardware sends scancodes to kernel
<br>[programs for scancodes: getkeycodes and setkeycodes]
</li>
<br>
<li>kernel looks up keycode for the scancode in a table
</li>
<li>kernel sends keycode to keyboard driver
</li>
<li>keyboard driver looks up character for keycode in keytable
<br>[programs for keytables: dumpkeys and loadkeys]
<br>[programs for special keys: setmetamode]
</li>
<br>
<li>keyboard driver is in one of 4 modes
<br>to send the characters to programs
<br>1. raw mode sends scancode
<br> for programs with an own keyboard driver (X11)
<br>2. keycode mode sends keycode
<br> for unknown purpose
<br>3. ascii mode sends character as 8-bit encoding
<br> (only 256 available)
<br>4. utf8 mode sends character as prefixed 8-bit encoding
<br> which makes multi-bytes
<br><b>comment</b>
<!-- might be too special
first byte range: 0xC0 - 0xFD telling how many will follow
next bytes range: 0x80 - 0xBF
never used : 0xFE + 0xFF
note, this has nothing to do with the characters in the fonts,
we are converting utf8 character sequences into multi-byte here
-->
<br>[programs for keyboard (driver) mode: kbd_mode and showkey]
</li>
<br>
<li>keyboard driver sends characters to program
</li>
<li>program works until result
</li>
<li>program sends characters to display to screen driver
</li>
<br>
<li>screen driver is in one of 2 modes
<br>to receive characters from programs
<br>1. utf mode interpretes received bytes as utf8 sequence
<br> converts it into (UCS-2) 16-bit sequences
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
This seems a bit wrong, I always thought we are using UTF-8 on linux
because exactely these 16-bit UCS-2 sequences don't work on linux.
-->
<br> looks up the glyph to display in the sfm screen
font map
<br>2. byte mode interpretes received bytes as byte sequences
<br> looks up the bytes in the acm application charset map
<br> converts it into utf8 sequences, than into 16-bit
sequences
<br> than looks up the glyph in the sfm screen font map
<br>[program for screen driver mode: vt-is-UTF8 (not in kbd package)]
<br>[switch to utf mode with `echo -en "\033%G"`]
<br>[switch to utf mode with `echo "\x1b%G"`]
<br>[switch to byte mode with `echo -en "\033%@"`]
<br>[switch to byte mode with `echo "\x1b%@"`]
<br>[programs for Unicode tables in fonts: psf{get,add,strip}table]
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
Did anyone ever think describing in clear words how to produce
this on a command line, how many tries do we have to take for
finding out which keys exactely how to press to get that result?
-->
<br>
<br>acm application charset map is one of 4 maps,
<br>3 of them built into kernel (also called console maps)
<br>1. default IBM codepage 437 character set
<br> for i386 other architectures (also called PC code)
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
and additionally a lot of other names I have seen - E.P.
-->
<br>2. DEC VT100 character set
<br>3. ISO latin1 character set
<br>4. user definable which is at boot time straight-to-font
<br>
<br>U+FFFD mostly font position 0 is the replacement character
<br>displayed if a character is not found in the sfm screen font map
<br>control ranges with Unicode values from U+F000 to U+F1FF
<br>(straight-to-font range) directly display what the font has
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
console-tools in doc/console1.txt:322
codes C from U+F000 to U+F1FF are not looked-up in the SFM, and
directly accesses the character in font-position C & 0x01FF (yes, a
font can be 512-chars on many hardware platforms, like VGA). This
is refered to as the straight to font zone.
(whatever "codes C" now might be - E.P)
-->
<br>[acm maps are in /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/console.c]
<br>[program for acm application charset map: none]
<br>
<br>a terminal can switch between two modes with G0 and G1
<br>1. G0 is by default ISO latin1
<br>2. G1 is by default DEC VT100
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
how the heck is that exactely done? Everywhere is just standing
^O and ^N. Ok ^ means control but CTRL+o pressing does not work, nor
does CTRL+SHIFT+o work, also echo -e "\033o" or "\033O" does not work.
Termcap does not know si= and so= nor ls0= or ls1= and SI and SO are
only described as ^O and ^N. Hell, times where keyboards only had a
CTRL and a ESC key are long over. - E.P.
-->
<br>[switch to G0 with ]
<br>[switch to G1 with ]
<br> example: on tty1=cp437 builtin with G0 switch
<br> example: on tty1=vt100 builtin with G1 switch
<br> example: on tty2=iso01 builtin with G0 switch
<br> example: on tty2=iso02 user with G1 switch
<br>but on all tty's there can only be one user-defined at the time
<br> example: on tty3=myown user with G0 impossible
<br>[adjust G0 to ISO latin1 with `echo -en '\033(B'`]
<br>[adjust G0 to IBM PC 743 with `echo -en '\033(U'`]
<br>[adjust G0 to DEC VT100 with `echo -en '\033(0'`]
<br>[adjust G0 to userdefined with `echo -en '\033(K'`]
<br>[adjust G1 to ISO latin1 with `echo -en '\033)B'`]
<br>[adjust G1 to IBM PC 743 with `echo -en '\033)U'`]
<br>[adjust G1 to DEC VT100 with `echo -en '\033)0'`]
<br>[adjust G1 to userdefined with `echo -en '\033)K'`]
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
No, don't think that G0 and G1 are the only ones.
`man charsets(7)` describes under ISO 2022 AND ISO 4873, second paragraph
G0-G4 as if that is the standard set. Rest is anyways not to understand- E.P.
-->
<br>
<li>screen driver interpretes received character due to mode it is in
</li>
<li>screen driver converts character to USC-2 16-bit
</li>
<li>screen driver looks up glyph for the character in font map
</li>
<li>screen driver prints the glyph to the screen
</li>
</ol>
</pre>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="startsystem"><b>how your system looks like after booting</b></a>
<br>If you start your linux system and do not run special initscripts
which change settings your system will have this status:
<br>
<ol>
<li>your keymap is the US keymap (qwerty/defkeymap)
<br>an initscript uses loadkeys to change the map for your keyboard
</li>
<li>the keyboard driver is in the default ASCII mode
<br>normally no initscript uses kbd_mode to change to utf8 mode
</li>
<li>so all your programs receive 8-bit ascii characters
</li>
<li>the screen driver is in the default byte mode
<br>normally no initscript uses the %@ echo to change to utf8 mode
</li>
<li>so all characters from programs will be treated as byte sequences
</li>
<!--
THIS is not equal in all docs. Some say it starts in IBM cp437 consequently
using the cp437.uni (which is used in the linux/drivers/char/Makefile. Some
say it starts in latin1 one - which might mean it has changed from former
cp437 to latin1 now. But how do we find out if there is no program we can
use to query the maps in G0 and G1?
-->
<li>the acm application character map is the default G0 ISO latin1
<br>normally no initscript changes this
</li>
<li>so the cp437.uni map will be used as base for transforming
<br><b>comment</b>
</li>
<li>the console font is the default8x16.psfu.gz in /consolefonts/
<br>maybe an initscript uses setfont | consolechars to change the font
</li>
</ol>
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<br><a name="datadirs"><b>shared directories and what they contain</b></a>
<br>all those are usually in /usr/share/ (formerly in /usr/lib/)
<br>subdirectories are up to distribution/install options
<ol>
<li><b>consolefonts/</b>
<br>used by <b>console-tools</b> and <b>kbd</b>
<br>with command "consolechars ..." or "setfont ..."
<br>contains compiled fonts in the linux default psf format
</li>
<li><b>consoletrans/</b>
<br>used by <b>console-tools</b> and <b>kbd</b>
<br>contains mapping tables
<ol>
<li><b>console-tools</b>
<br>with command "consolechars -m ..."
<br>contains acm kernel mapping tables as *.acm or *.trans
<br>with command "consolechars -u ..."
<br>contains font mapping tables as *.sfm
</li>
<li><b>kbd</b>
<br>with the command "setfont -m ..."
<br>contains acm kernel mapping tables as *.trans or without
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><b>unimaps/</b>
<br>used by <b>kbd</b>
<br>with command "setfont -u ..." or "loadunimap"
<br>contains non-builtin font mapping tables as *.uni or without
</li>
</ol>
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
ascii.20-7f.uni (kbd/unimaps/) begins like this
# font positions 0-95: positions 32-127 in ASCII
0x000 U+0020 #
0x001 U+0021 # !
What the heck is a font position, is a glyph and an associated unicode
number not enough?
And why do we compare apples with bananas in the comment, 0-95 is line 0
to line 95 and 32-127 is the decimal value for the ascii range.
And what about explaining idem, what the hell does it point to?? - E.P.
-->
<hr noshade>
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->
<a name="messages"><b>error and other messages</b></a>
<br>These are some messages which you might see and what to make of them.
<br>
<br><a name="build-9thcol"><b>9th column displayed incorrectly</b></a>
<br>- occurs during building a font
<br>- message sent by vga script
<br>
<br>Open one of the .sbf files containing the glyphs and look at the
lines which show a picture of a character. You will count 16
lines for the height and 9 dots for the width. We deal with a
font here which is described as 8x16 font, with 8 referring to
the width and 16 to the height. So the 8th and 9th column of
the width are the ones of interest here.
<br>
<br>The video memory has space for 8 pixels (8 pixels = 1 byte).
The normal VGA hardware has space for 9 pixels and this one is
responsible how it will look like on the screen if all those
pictures are finally put after eachother. You would for
example expect letters to be separated by a little space so they
are readable, but at the same time expect a box you create to
have the lines as one piece and not interrupted by little spaces.
<br>
<br>So from the 8 pixels of the video memory the VGA driver has to
make 9 pixels to bring everything correctly onto screen by either
adding the 9th pixels as blanks or by repeating the 8th pixels.
The "blankings" are in the graphics area (letter) and the
"repeatings" are in the pseudographics area (box), just the other
way round you would assume from the word "graphic".
BUT the pseudographics area is hardweired into your graphic card,
and if we have a picture which would actually need to be here but
is not, it will be treated like one of the graphic area and instead
of repeat it will blank.
<br>
<br>Now the pictures in the glyph files have all 9 columns, they are
allowed to have 9 although the video memory will only keep 8. So
those pictures should give us the idea how the final result might
look like. And the vga script will look at their 8th and 9th
column to find out whether it is a letter, so it can put into
the graphics area (remember the pseudographics was hardcoded).
<br>
<br>Knowing all this now, look at these lines and note how the last
one will give a different result on screen than the glyph will
make you believe (simply because 8th and 9th column are not
equal. So having unequal things in column 8 and 9 in the glyph
might be a reason for such a message.
<br>
<pre>
glyph says video memory VGA does on screen description
+-+ +-+ +-+
00...00.|.| 00...00.| | . append 00...00.|.| graphic (letter)
| | | | | |
...00000|0| ...00000| | 0 repeat ...00000|0| pseudographic (box)
| | | | | |
.......0|0| ........| | 0 repeat .......0|0| pseudographics
.......0|.| ........| | 0 repeat .......0|0| with different
........|0| ........| | . repeat ........|.| 8th/9th column
+-+ +-+ +-+
^----what----^---happens with the----^---9th pixel
^--if the 8th pixel is treated according to this area--^
</pre>
<br><b>comment</b>
<!--
THIS is still speculation, I did not yet verify by building a test
font.
-->
<!-- ................................................................... -->
<br>If you run into this with the koi8-r and koi8-u fonts, the
reason is a different one. With no locale specified running
build.sh will announce 234 characters in the font for both files;
but 8r has 7 of them and 8u has 3 of them displayed incorrectly.
So the difference between 8r and 8u must eliminate 4 offending
characters.
<br>
<br>Finding the difference is done simply with diff-ing their text
source files. Generally spoken 8r has drawings and 8u replaces
all drawings with letters. Now looking into the glyph files for
all the drawings show that 4 of them will be recognized as
pseudographics (8/9 being equally zero like box) and the other
4 of them will be recognized as graphics (8/9 being equally dot,
so letter).
<br>
<br>As we only deal with column 8/9 here, we can also say, 4 replace
graphic with graphic, so there is no change; and 4 replace
pseudographic with graphic and the offending ones are gone. So
pseudographics (these are the drawings which continue straight
to next one) will be displayed incorrectly (like normal letters).
<br>
<br>Now we have a look at the definition lines in whole and we see
that all Unicode values are connected to the HEX values of the
characters which are somehow between =Cx and =Dx. These belong
to the iso range and are assumed to be letters and no drawings.
<br>
</body>
</html>
|
