Re: [PATCH v5 RESEND] Fonts: Adding all Terminus fronts from 12 to 32 in bold, and normal versions

[Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de>]

Hello Pavel,

On 3/10/26 13:24, Pavel Nikulin wrote:
>> Why are both bold and non-bold fonts needed?
> 
> Because people have different screen densities. On those 4k 10 inch screens, people would probably go for bolder versions regardless of how much text they want to fit in.

Yes, but is there so much difference between 10x18, 10x18b,10x20,10x20b ?
I mean, this is a whole lot of source code (bloat?) which we would add to the kernel sources.
Even more worse, if most people won't even compile it then....

Just looking at the number of possible fonts, I wouldn't know which one to use myself:

  lib/fonts/font_ter10x18.c  | 6412 ++++++++----------------------------
  lib/fonts/font_ter10x18b.c | 1305 ++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter10x20.c  | 1305 ++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter10x20b.c | 1305 ++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter11x22.c  | 1561 +++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter11x22b.c | 1561 +++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter12x24.c  | 1561 +++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter12x24b.c | 1561 +++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter14x28.c  | 1817 ++++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter14x28b.c | 1817 ++++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter16x32.c  | 4107 +++++++++++------------
  lib/fonts/font_ter16x32b.c | 2073 ++++++++++++
  lib/fonts/font_ter6x12.c   |  537 +++
  lib/fonts/font_ter8x14.c   |  537 +++
  lib/fonts/font_ter8x14b.c  |  537 +++
  lib/fonts/font_ter8x16.c   |  537 +++
  lib/fonts/font_ter8x16b.c  |  537 +++

>> They may be loaded after bootup via userspace too.

And I still believe, that the fbconsole usually is used for:
a) older historic machines which can't use DRM/DRI, and
b) simple devices / embedded devices which still use fbdev, and
c) probably the majority: new x86 machines with DRM where it's only used shortly for bootup until graphical login appears.

For a) I believe the current fonts are sufficient (and mimic the architecture).
For b) I believe one of the current fonts will be hardcoded by the vendor.
For c) I think most people don't care about the additional fonts.

> Too many fonts are already baked into the kernel, and I would've
> advocated for eventually adding a function for PSFs to be more
> easily added at config, or boot time.

Yes, a function to compile in some PSF-font at build-time would
probably be more useful?

All that said, my believe is that we already ship enough fonts
and don't need a whole bunch of additional fonts.

Any opinions from dri-devel folks on that?

> Terminus is a good font for the kernel for the reason that it covers a very wide range of font sizes.
> 
> On the sidenote, the previously incorporated Terminus font patch seemingly has a wrong FONTDATAMAX value

Do you want to send a patch?

Helge