vt(4) "newcons" and 80x25 vty? (tested: 10.1-BETA2)

[beeessdee at ruggedinbox.com]

On Fri, September 26, 2014 12:51 am, beeessdee at ruggedinbox.com wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 18:13:56 +0200, "Ronald Klop" <ronald-lists at klop.ws>
> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 17:31:49 +0200, <beeessdee at ruggedinbox.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I daily use FreeBSD with base system virtual terminals (no X).  I am
>>> excited of vt(4) with Unicodes support.  But screen has arbitrary
>>> number
>>> of lines and columns, whatever will fit with selected font.  How to get
>>> standard 80x25?
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Can you try hw.vga.textmode=1 in loader.conf? It will a similar screen
>> as
>> syscons did.
>> See man vt(4).
>
> Thanks for the response.
>
> That sounds as good workaround, if works when kms/drm loaded; I will try
> it as soon as I can be by my test machine.

Original problem is still a problem, workaround not work.  *Either* I
have 80x25 mode (mildly improvement with some vt(4) font mapping?), *or*
I have graphics mode with wide range of characters but WAY tiny, tiny,
and too many lines/columns on screen.  Also some bugs/hangs with font
loading.

Any suggest how to tweak/debug further, I will appreciate.

Key points:

* hw.vga.textmode=1 not affect situation with kms driver loaded:  Tiny
characters, much too many lines/cols.  Maybe this seem obvious, but
important for next reason.

* VT in VGA textmode fonts loading broken (tested 10.1-BETA2).  Tried
vidfont(1) and also vidcontrol -f [size] [filename].  For loading "VGA"
fonts, screen weird/unusable (see below).  For loading Gallant (12x22),
the virtual terminal freeze (both other vty still ok).

* So, I can see some nice accented Latin characters (mapped from BIOS
provided font?).  Not like sc(4), with vt(4) I can echo raw utf-8 of
these!  But not any Cyrillic, CJK, Middle Eastern, etc.

With kern.vty=vt and hw.vga.textmode=1 (set at loader prompt), when use
vidfont(1) to select fonts called "VGA" in it's menu, it's very weird.
Cursor gets stuck in small area at top corner of screen.  Rest of screen
retains its contents, cannot be cleared.  reset(1) and clear(1) does
nothing.  Not find way to fix this, except reboot.

Obvious the 12x22 font (as gallant) will not expect working in
"textmode".  And does not work (hangs vty).  As stated in previous mail,
with kms driver vidfont(1) has bug prevent gallant load (but vidcontrol
-f works).

Test platform:  10.1-BETA2 amd64 live usb.  I use loader prompt to
select vty subsystem, set options, load kms drivers sometimes (also
sometimes kldload later).  I try all combinations I can think of.
Cannot try 10.1-BETA3 until I get gjb@ PGP keyid 0x478FE293, per other
thread today on -stable.

I hope this will be fixed, and maybe I try hacking on it sometime (where
to start?).  I will be sad to see this broken still by 10.1-RELEASE.  It
is encouraged for more people try Old Fashioned Unix at the terminal...
especially people using non English language.