On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 03:29:22PM -0400, Christoph K. wrote:
>
> I'm unsatisfied with the default sans font in debian for use in the
> graphical user interface (in my case XFCE).
I use BSD and Linux, and my eyesight sucks. For console work (23" monitor
that's about 2 feet away) I use an Xterm with one of the following fonts
(in order of preference):
* xft:Menlo-Regular:pixelsize=20:bold
* xft:Cascadia:pixelsize=22:bold
* xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:pixelsize=21:bold
For browsing (Firefox), my "prefs.js" file holds:
user_pref("browser.display.use_document_fonts", 0);
user_pref("font.default.x-western", "sans-serif");
user_pref("font.internaluseonly.changed", false);
user_pref("font.minimum-size.x-western", 18);
user_pref("font.name.monospace.x-western", "DejaVu Sans");
user_pref("font.name.sans-serif.x-western", "sans-serif");
user_pref("font.name.serif.x-western", "DejaVu Serif");
user_pref("font.size.fixed.x-western", 18);
user_pref("font.size.variable.x-western", 18);
Others I've liked:
* xft:Edlo:pixelsize=21:bold
* xft:FiraMono-Regular:pixelsize=22:bold
* xft:Inconsolata-Bold:pixelsize=25:bold
* xft:Meslo LG S:pixelsize=20:bold
* xft:Meslo LG S:pixelsize=21:bold
* xft:UbuntuMono-B:pixelsize=25:bold
If you get your FONT setting from the environment, it's easy to experiment:
me% echo $FONT
xft:Cascadia:pixelsize=20:bold
This script starts a new xterm with some tweaks to make it a little nicer:
#!/bin/sh
#<xtest: start a new monitor session.
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin
#---------------------------------------------------------
# Start xterms -- options:
#
# -b 10 size of the inner border (not rxvt)
# -bd black black border
# -bg white white background
# -cr blue blue cursor
# -fa 'xft:...' font size and weight
# -j jump scrolling
# -ls start as a login shell
# -sb use a scroll-bar
# -sl 4000 4000 lines of history
# -u8 UTF-8 support for graphics characters
#
# -si output to a window should not automatically
# reposition the screen at the bottom of the
# scroll region.
#
# -sk pressing a key while using the scrollbar to
# review previous lines of text should cause the
# window to be repositioned automatically at the
# bottom of the scroll region.
XTERM=/usr/local/bin/xterm
topts="-j -b 10 -sb -si -sk -ls -cr blue -sl 4000 -bd black -bg white -u8"
# Get the font from the environment if possible.
case "$FONT" in
"") FONT='xft:Menlo-Regular:pixelsize=20:bold' ;;
*) ;;
esac
COLUMNS=80
LINES=40
# 21 pixels makes a nice default size.
case "$FONT" in
*:*) ;;
*) FONT="xft:$FONT:pixelsize=21:bold" ;;
esac
export COLUMNS LINES
geo="-geometry ${COLUMNS}x${LINES}-0+0"
( $XTERM $geo $topts -fa "$FONT" -title "Remote" ) &
If you use xterm a lot, building from source is worth it.
Get the source and GPG key here:
https://invisible-island.net/archives/xterm/xterm-384.tgz
https://invisible-island.net/archives/xterm/xterm-384.tgz.asc
To build, unpack the source:
dest=/usr/local
export TERMINFO=/usr/local/share/terminfo
./configure \
--disable-setgid \
--disable-setuid \
--enable-256-color \
--enable-narrowproto \
--mandir=$dest/man \
--with-x \
--with-own-terminfo=$TERMINFO
make
make check
make install
It comes with a nice terminfo file. I've had problems with "tic" for
ncurses >= version 6, so I use the ncurses-5.9 version to compile it:
root# tic59 -V
ncurses 5.9.20110404
root# tic59 -s -o $TERMINFO terminfo
Hope this gives you some ideas.
--
Karl Vogel / vogelke AT pobox DOT com / I don't speak for anyone but myself
The Beatles: "I Get By with a Little Help From Depends"
--Re-released hits for an aging audience
