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As a non-English speaker, my obvious question is how does the PSF2 format encode fonts with more than 256 glyphs? How would one go about implementing Unicode te

As a non-English speaker, my obvious question is how does the PSF2 format encode fonts with more than 256 glyphs? How would one go about implementing Unicode text rendering? Combine glyphs from multiple 8-bit codepages to get the required characters? Does the Linux system console support Unicode in the first place? edit: the linked header file[1] explains that a single PSF2 can actually encode any number of glyphs (not just 256), and additional meta-information after the bitmaps spell out which Unicode code points OR combining character sequences each bitmap corresponds to. [1]: https://github.com/legionus/kbd/blob/master/src/psf.h https://github.com/legionus/kbd/blob/master/src/psf.h

Fnoord 9y ago
Not sure if this answers your question but I already ran a Matrix screensaver in a framebuffer on Linux ~16 years ago. As per this post I believe it was cmatrix [1]. There's a screenshot on that page. If you look carefully you can notice some odd symbols. One could also use MPlayer + libcaca + framebuffer. [1] https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/cmatrix-none-the-worse-for-wear/ https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/cmatrix-none-...
khedoros1 9y ago
> Does the Linux system console support Unicode in the first place? I have various files in Chinese and Japanese, and they display correctly for me in Linux, even under the console.
jwilk 9y ago
Linux console supports up to 512 glyphs and has only minimal Unicode support. There are terminal emulators, such as fbterm or kmscon, that use framebuffer and might have better Unicode support.
- bringtheaction 9y ago
  kmscon looks pretty neat. Anyone have any experience with it? Was it easy to set up? Does it make for a comfortable environment? Is it relatively easy to write your own applications that can output on top of the frame buffer, e.g. if you are developing a game with OpenGL and want to develop in this environment and to test your game from there as well?

Fnoord 9y ago

Not sure if this answers your question but I already ran a Matrix screensaver in a framebuffer on Linux ~16 years ago. As per this post I believe it was cmatrix [1]. There's a screenshot on that page. If you look carefully you can notice some odd symbols. One could also use MPlayer + libcaca + framebuffer. [1] https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/cmatrix-none-the-worse-for-wear/ https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/cmatrix-none-...

khedoros1 9y ago

> Does the Linux system console support Unicode in the first place? I have various files in Chinese and Japanese, and they display correctly for me in Linux, even under the console.

jwilk 9y ago

Linux console supports up to 512 glyphs and has only minimal Unicode support. There are terminal emulators, such as fbterm or kmscon, that use framebuffer and might have better Unicode support.

bringtheaction 9y ago
kmscon looks pretty neat. Anyone have any experience with it? Was it easy to set up? Does it make for a comfortable environment? Is it relatively easy to write your own applications that can output on top of the frame buffer, e.g. if you are developing a game with OpenGL and want to develop in this environment and to test your game from there as well?