> > Why do you need so ? If there *is* a general need for this, this > > should be handled by kbd directly, but I (as kbd maintainer) need to > > know exactly what you'd like to see. > OK. Here is what I need. Usually I set LANG=ru_RU.KOI8-R, this means that > all > programs that are using appropriate functions, have their's output localized. > For example, when I compile a kernel, it updates the version file (or > something > like that) that saying that it was compile at. This means that when I boot my > computer (this is my home computer) it prints some pseudo-graphics characters > that are supposed to be the date when the kernel was compiled. I'd like to > see > that in Russian, which is more meaningful. > > My investigation shows that the only way to use appropriate font is to try to > load it with boot loader. But, to my knowledge, the only loader that supports > that is syslinux (I am not that sure, though). > > > PS: Please send such request as a bug-report against the relevant > > package next time. Had I not been subscribed to this list, I would > > never have read about it :( > > So I do not know what package I should file the bug-report against. There is > no way to run any program before kernel is loaded, or init starts. So this > should be a boot loader, but this seems to be a new feature rather than a bug. > LILO (which I am using) does not seem to be developped actively...
Another possibility might be to use the framebuffer console from the late 2.1.xx kernels. Then you can use VGA graphics mode instead of VGA text mode right from the start, so the fonts come from inside the kernel instead of from the ROM on the graphics card. Presumably you could then make a kernel with your own font built into it. I don't know whether there's a more official way of doing it than replacing font_8x16.c and font_8x8.c in linux/drivers/video/ ... I'll take the opportunity for some general questions: Why was the use of VGA graphics mode so late to appear in i386 Linux? Isn't VGA graphics hardly any less universal than VGA text mode? Doesn't graphics mode make it easier to do things in a similar way across different machine architectures? Is it a good idea to use the framebuffer to internationalise installation floppies? If so, is there any software already available for generating simply windows, menus, buttons, etc, like what newt does, but in a variety of languages, such as Chinese, Arabic, Korean? Edmund
