Beyond technical improvements, Linux Kernel 6.19 will also deliver something that, oddly enough, can be seen from a more aesthetic point of view. And more specifically, it is set to introduce a new Terminus 10×18 console bitmap font, offering a clearer, more balanced option for users who rely on text-mode consoles.
The addition arrives through a recent PR as part of a broader set of fbdev updates targeting the 6.19-rc1 cycle. Expectations are that the new font will improve readability in environments where console clarity still matters, especially on modern laptops and framebuffer-based systems.
The Terminus 10×18 font is designed specifically for mid-density 13–16-inch laptop displays with resolutions such as 1280×800 and 1440×900. Existing built-in fonts, most notably the long-standing 8×16 fallback used by the kernel for decades, tend to appear cramped or thin on these panels.
make comic shanns mono the default terminal font cowards
This made me remember that one time several years ago when I was wondering if there was any way to change that font and learned there was some sort of service that allowed you to do that in boot time, but the downside was that there was some sort of what it’s known at frontend web development as “FOUT” (flash of unstyled text) and you could avoid that by converting your .pcf font to C code and patch it into the kernel code, but at that point I gave up.
Thanks! Also I’m always disabling anti alias in my terminal and editor console text, see: https://gitlab.melroy.org/melroy/dotfiles/-/blob/main/home/melroy/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf?ref_type=heads (I’m using mono fonts)
Shouls fonts be rendered in the kernel?
How else are you going to display anything at boot time?
Boot means initramfs plus kernel. Any other part could do that, doesnt need to run in kernelspace. I dont think the initramfs runs in kernel mode either.
Linux is a big huge thing that is all very highly privileged. It works, very well, but it is kind of a security mess.
And if you don’t have an initramfs?
Found the Gentoo user
Nah I’m just old
initramfs is a compressed filesystem, not an execution context. But it must be possible to print text even before initramfs loads, e.g. to display an error if it fails.
You got a better idea for text mode?
Yes, the kernel doing hardware things and another part doing rendering for example, interacting with the kernel.
Text mode isnt just the kernel… the first thing that starts after the kernel is the init system.
It’s a shame you’re getting downvoted since you’re actually right, and distros are in the process of moving to “kmscon”, a userspace console, rather than the old kernel console (Which iirc isn’t actually intended to be a general purpose console, it’s meant for boot messages)
That said, the fonts the kernel uses are old style bitmap fonts, extremely limited “attack surface” as they’re not doing stuff like opentype/font shaping, it’s just setting pixel values directly.
He wants pixels instead of fonts I guess. Not the sharpest drawer in the toolbox.
