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NAME

       restorefont - save or restore the SVGA font for textmode.

SYNOPSIS

       restorefont {-r|-w} filename

DESCRIPTION

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

FILE FORMAT

       The VGA font file filename has the following format:

              Offset:
                 0 -   31  Character 0
                  ...          ...
              8164 - 8195  Character 255

       Each  row  of  a  character bitmap is stored as a byte (8 pixels).  The
       space that is left from  the  32-byte  buffer  for  each  character  is
       ignored,  e.g.  a  16  line  font  uses  only  offsets  0  - 15 of each
       character.

       Linux textmode screen resolutions:

       80x25    16 line font  400 scanlines
       80x28    14 line font  400 scanlines
       80x50     8 line font  400 scanlines

       The font sizes and resolutions of  extended  textmodes  depend  on  the
       video card type and BIOS:

       132x25   14 line font  350 scanlines (ugly)
       132x25   16 line font  400 scanlines
       132x43    8 line font  350 scanlines (use fix132x43 to fix/improve)
       132x50    8 line font  400 scanlines

       Using a font that has less lines per character than the textmode works,
       but the characters are smaller. Using a font that is  bigger  than  the
       textmode font results in the bottom part of characters being cut off.

       The  svgalib  distribution contains sample fonts with 8, 14 and 16 line
       characters in the files utils/font8, utils/font14, and utils/font16.

       The convfont (1) program can be used to convert fonts straightforwardly
       stored   character-after-character   (i.e.  each  character  only  uses
       8/14/whatever  bytes),  to  the  32-byte  per  character  format   that
       restorefont requires.

       The  purpose  of  this  program  is  usually  to recover from a crashed
       console due to an svgalib, Xfree or other program bug. First  save  the
       state  of the SVGA card when on a text console. After the crash restore
       this state. The  savetextmode(1)  and  textmode(1)  script  makes  this
       procedure very easy.

       The  national/fontpak  packages,  which  include  kernel patches, allow
       different textmode fonts to be  used  in  different  virtual  consoles.
       These  have  been  superseded  by  the kbd package (in the kernel since
       ages). See the setfont(8) utility of the  kbd  package  as  a  starting
       point.

       Recent  kernels  support  up  to  2  fonts  with 512 chars each. Recent
       versions of svgalib take this into account and extend the size  of  the
       datafile accordingly.

OPTIONS

       -w filename
              write the font to the file filename.

       -r filename
              restore the font from the file filename.

SEE ALSO

       svgalib(7), vgagl(7), libvga.config(5), setfont(8), vga_gettextfont(3),
       vga_puttextfont(3),     dumpreg(1),     convfont(1),      fix132x43(1),
       restoretextmode(1),    restorepalette(1),   runx(1),   savetextmode(1),
       setmclk(1), textmode(1).

AUTHOR

       This manual page was edited  by  Michael  Weller  <eowmob@exp-math.uni-
       essen.de>. The exact source of the referenced utility as well as of the
       original documentation is unknown.

       It is very likely that both are at least to some extent are due to Harm
       Hanemaayer <H.Hanemaayer@inter.nl.net>.

       Occasionally  this  might be wrong. I hereby asked to be excused by the
       original author and will happily accept any additions or corrections to
       this first version of the svgalib manual.