Talk:Linux console

Differences between the Linux virtual console and terminal emulators

The Linux console is typically used when no graphical user interface (GUI, such as X.org or Wayland) is in use when a Linux computer is booted and ready for use. Also, by default only keyboard (stdin) and an attached display/monitor (stdout/stderr) are available. The main difference between the Linux console and a GUI terminal emulator is the Linux virtual consoles are attached directly to TTY devices (TeleTYpe, a throwback to the UNIX roots of Linux, /dev/ttyN) whereas the shells within a terminal emulator are pseudo-TTYs (/dev/pty*). The Linux console by default doesn't use the mouse/pointer as an input device (though GPM could be used for that). Also, terminal emulators generally have a much richer set of fonts available compared to the Linux console.

Terminal emulators also can have a number of features built-in, such as tabs, splitting the window vertically or horizontally (with separate shells in each tab/pane), scrollback buffers/sliders, background images (with transparency), etc. You can achieve the tabs, split windows, and scrollback buffers in the Linux console with terminal multiplexers like Tmux or GNU Screen, or this can be done within certain TUI programs (e.g. Vim), but that's outside the scope for this article.

--Ectospasm (talk) 16:37, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

By `/dev/pty*` you mean `/dev/pts/*`, or am I missing something? Andrei Korshikov (talk) 16:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

setfont -d for 64*64

@Oldherl, thank you for nice finding, now there is a couple of questions)

https://man.archlinux.org/man/setfont.8#d still saying "Due to kernel limitations, this is suitable only for 16x16 or smaller fonts." Is that a bug is the man? If so, it's worth to note that in the article. Or, maybe Arch Linux man pages are build on kernel 6.8, and it's an Arch issue.

Also, I would like to move the link to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI#In-kernel_fonts from its own HiDPI section to somewhere in the Fonts section (because it is about fonts). Maybe put it in the "also see" sentence right after this "setfont -d" topic. -- Andrei Korshikov (talk) 11:14, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

In Linux <=6.8, fonts (after possibly doubling) are limited to 32*32. It's only in Linux 6.9 that up to 64*128 are supported. So they should be getting an update. Oldherl (talk) 11:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

That is exactly why I'm asking. If you are on 6.9, can you check your `man setfont`? To find out who are "they" who should be getting an update) Andrei Korshikov (talk) 11:25, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

It's still there. I believe it's the upstream that should update the documentation. Oldherl (talk) 13:29, 20 May 2024 (UTC)