The mechanism currently used in D-I to decide which *console* font is to be made the default for the Linux console (i.e. in non graphical environment) is based on a per-language decision.
Deopending on the language used for the installation, different console fonts are used (nothing to do with graphical environments). This is determined by the (somewhat cryptic) languagelist file of localechooser. When grepping this list for languages which currently setup a console fonts (aka languages for which at least one complete console font exists, which leaves CJK, Arabic, Indic and such languages aside), we have the following: Albanian;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Basque;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Belarusian;cyr=uni,16,utf-8,by(ctrl_shift_toggle) Bosnian;kbd=ter-v16f(utf8) Bulgarian;kbd=ruscii_8x16(cp1251) Catalan;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Croatian;kbd=lat2-sun16(utf8) Czech;kbd=lat2-sun16(utf8) Danish;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Dutch;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) English;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Esperanto;kbd=LatArCyrHeb-16(utf8) Estonian;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Finnish;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) French;kbd=lat9u-16(utf8) Galician;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) German;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Greek;kbd=iso07.f16(utf8) Hebrew;kbd=LatArCyrHeb-16(utf8) Hungarian;kbd=lat2-sun16(utf8) Icelandic;kbd=lat9u-16(utf8) Indonesian;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Italian;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Kurdish;kbd=ter-916f(utf8) Latvian;kbd=lat7-14(utf8) Lithuanian;kbd=LatArCyrHeb-16(utf8) Malagasy;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Macedonian;kbd=iso05.f16(utf8) Northern Sami;kbd=lat0-sun(utf8) Norwegian Bokmaal;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Norwegian Nynorsk;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Persian;kbd=iso06.f16(utf8) Polish;kbd=lat2-sun16(utf8) Portuguese (Brazil);kbd=lat1-16(utf8) Portuguese;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Romanian;kbd=ter-g16f(utf8) Russian;cyr=uni,16,koi8-r,ru_ms(ctrl_shift_toggle) Slovak;kbd=lat2-sun16(utf8) Slovenian;kbd=lat2-sun16(utf8) Spanish;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Swedish;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Tagalog;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) Turkish;kbd=ter-916f(utf8) Ukrainian;kbd=ruscii_8x16(utf8) Welsh;kbd=iso14.f16(utf8) Xhosa;kbd=lat0-sun16(utf8) In short, a big mess..:-) Each language triggers its own console font: -"kbd=" entries will use fonts from the console-data package, namely what follows the "=" sign -"ter=" entries will use fonts from the console-terminus package -"cyr=" will use fonts from the console-cyrillic package All chosen fonts are OK for the selected languages, however: -they often can only display characters from one charset only (ie Latin1 fonts will not include several Latin2 characters and so on) -even among similar language families, there is no real consistency (why different fonts for pt_BR and pt?) I made a few tests and, actually, some fonts from the "console-terminus" package could be well-suited for many of the above languages. Indeed the "ter-v16*" fonts are 512 glyphs fonts and thus cover Latin-1 (so called Western European), Latin-2 (so called Central European), Latin-9 (Turkish), Romanian, Latin-7 (Latvian), Slavian Cyrillic and Asian Cyrillic As a consequence, I think we could simplify all this. As a first attempt, I propose changing the default font to "ter-v16f" for all languages of the Latin-1, Latin-2 families, as well as Turkish, Kurdish, Romanian. The case of Cyrillic languages might be more complicated as a few glyphs may be missing for some of them (Eugenyi....your skills here could help). So, please, translators, make the following tests at the Linux console (aka outside X): 1) backup /etc/console-tools/config 2) aptitude install console-terminus 3) change the SCREEN_FONT entry in /etc/console-tools/config to "ter-v16f" 4) reconfigure the console: "/etc/init.d/console-screen.sh start" Then, try displaying text files in your languages, possibly with all its characters. You can find such files in installer/build/needed-characters in a D-I SVN checkout. Or you can type some yourselves! I propose doing this change AFTER D-I BETA2, so you have plenty of time for testing AND GETTING FEEDBACK from users of your languages. I also CC Anton Zinoviev, who maintains console-terminus, to this mail. Anton, your help might be required if deeply technical issues are raised.....:-) Please comment about this proposal....this is a medium term goal, we have time to discuss it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
