Bug 44108

Summary:	Initscripts call setsysfont with disregard for text mode
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Mike A. Harris <mharris>
Component:	initscripts	Assignee:	Bill Nottingham <notting>
Status:	CLOSED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	Brock Organ <borgan>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.1	CC:	rvokal
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2001-06-11 13:34:31 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Mike A. Harris 2001-06-11 13:34:27 UTC

Description of Problem:  During boot time, the initscripts call the
program "setsysfont" which automatically loads an 8x16 font.  This
totally overrides the "vga=ext" or vga=whatver setting a user may have
put in lilo.conf.  The 80x50 text mode of the kernel requires an 8x8 or 
8x9 font for correct operation.


How Reproducible: 100% after new installation


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Edit lilo.conf, in global section add "vga=ext" then save and exit
2. Run lilo so the above change takes effect.
3. Reboot

Actual Results:

When the system comes up it starts out in 80x50 mode until the rc script
calls setsysfont, which then changes the font to an 8x16 font which
forces 80x25 mode upon you.

Expected Results:

Having the font left alone unmodified unless configured to use a
different font.  Having the video mode left in 80x50 mode, or 
whatever the kernel defaulted to either built in or specified 
in lilo.conf.

Additional Information:

As a temporary workaround, I have disabled setsysfont with:
chmod a-x /sbin/setsysfont

The correct behaviour then occurs of 80x50 mode working properly.
I haven't looked at the scripts, but it is likely just some bad
assumption there that needs to take into account other text mode
sizes.

Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 2001-06-11 14:40:21 UTC

This isn't fixable. You're free to change the default font to something more
that fits better on your preferred screen size.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 26901 ***