1restorefont(1)                Svgalib User Manual               restorefont(1)
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NAME

6       restorefont - save or restore the SVGA font for textmode.
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SYNOPSIS

9       restorefont {-r|-w} filename
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DESCRIPTION

13       The  font  used by SVGA when in textmode is written to or restored from
14       filename using the vga_gettextfont(3) and vga_puttextfont(3) functions.
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FILE FORMAT

18       The VGA font file filename has the following format:
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20              Offset:
21                 0 -   31  Character 0
22                  ...          ...
23              8164 - 8195  Character 255
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25       Each row of a character bitmap is stored as a  byte  (8  pixels).   The
26       space  that  is  left  from  the  32-byte  buffer for each character is
27       ignored, e.g. a 16 line font uses only offsets 0 - 15 of  each  charac‐
28       ter.
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30       Linux textmode screen resolutions:
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32       80x25    16 line font  400 scanlines
33       80x28    14 line font  400 scanlines
34       80x50     8 line font  400 scanlines
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36       The  font  sizes  and  resolutions  of extended textmodes depend on the
37       video card type and BIOS:
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39       132x25   14 line font  350 scanlines (ugly)
40       132x25   16 line font  400 scanlines
41       132x43    8 line font  350 scanlines (use fix132x43 to fix/improve)
42       132x50    8 line font  400 scanlines
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44       Using a font that has less lines per character than the textmode works,
45       but  the  characters  are smaller. Using a font that is bigger than the
46       textmode font results in the bottom part of characters being cut off.
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48       The svgalib distribution contains sample fonts with 8, 14 and  16  line
49       characters in the files utils/font8, utils/font14, and utils/font16.
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51       The convfont (1) program can be used to convert fonts straightforwardly
52       stored  character-after-character  (i.e.  each  character   only   uses
53       8/14/whatever bytes), to the 32-byte per character format that restore‐
54       font requires.
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56       The purpose of this program is usually to recover from a  crashed  con‐
57       sole  due  to  an  svgalib,  Xfree or other program bug. First save the
58       state of the SVGA card when on a text console. After the crash  restore
59       this  state. The savetextmode(1) and textmode(1) script makes this pro‐
60       cedure very easy.
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62       The national/fontpak packages, which include kernel patches, allow dif‐
63       ferent  textmode  fonts to be used in different virtual consoles. These
64       have been superseded by the kbd package (in the kernel since ages). See
65       the setfont(8) utility of the kbd package as a starting point.
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67       Recent  kernels  support up to 2 fonts with 512 chars each. Recent ver‐
68       sions of svgalib take this into account and  extend  the  size  of  the
69       datafile accordingly.
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OPTIONS

73       -w filename
74              write the font to the file filename.
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76       -r filename
77              restore the font from the file filename.
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SEE ALSO

81       svgalib(7), vgagl(7), libvga.config(5), setfont(8), vga_gettextfont(3),
82       vga_puttextfont(3),  dumpreg(1),  convfont(1),  fix132x43(1),  restore‐
83       textmode(1),  restorepalette(1),  runx(1), savetextmode(1), setmclk(1),
84       textmode(1).
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AUTHOR

87       This manual page was edited  by  Michael  Weller  <eowmob@exp-math.uni-
88       essen.de>. The exact source of the referenced utility as well as of the
89       original documentation is unknown.
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91       It is very likely that both are at least to some extent are due to Harm
92       Hanemaayer <H.Hanemaayer@inter.nl.net>.
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94       Occasionally  this  might be wrong. I hereby asked to be excused by the
95       original author and will happily accept any additions or corrections to
96       this first version of the svgalib manual.
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100Svgalib (>= 1.2.11)               2 Aug 1997                    restorefont(1)