Question about spleen - the default console font

[stanl]

Running OpenBSD 6.6 on an old ThinkPad X220.

If I do Control+Alt+F2 and start using Newsboat to read RSS feeds, certain chacacters (specifically apostrophes and quotation marks) show as the letter a under ^.

If spleen is the default font shouldn't these characters show correctly or is this a problem with newsboat ad has nothing to do with spleen?

Thanks

[jggimi]

I have an X220 and am not seeing this problem. It could be because I'm running -current, or it could be because I've booted via EFI/GPT which uses the efifb(4) frame buffer in console mode, or it could be because my environment has LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8

[stanl]

I'm running -release. I think -current is beyond my capabilities at the moment.

I've got LC_CTYPE=en_US-UTF-8 in ~/.kshrc.
BiOS gives me a choice of UEFI or legacy; I have it set to UEFI

Doing dmesg | grep efifb:

efifb at mainbus0 not configured.

Could my problem be related to inteldrm and if so is there any work-around?

Thanks

[IdOp]

Originally Posted by stanl

I've got LC_CTYPE=en_US-UTF-8 in ~/.kshrc.

I notice this has a dash '-' after US whereas I think it should be a dot '.' as indicated by jggimi. I mention this on the off chance it's not a typo in your post, and might be the problem.

[jggimi]

Originally Posted by stanl

I'm running -release. I think -current is beyond my capabilities at the moment.

6.7-release is expected on or about May 1.

Doing dmesg | grep efifb:

efifb at mainbus0 not configured.

Same as me.

Could my problem be related to inteldrm and if so is there any work-around?

You can configure the kernel to disable the inteldrm driver, but I doubt you would be pleased with the results. Most likely, if your LC_CTYPE is incorrectly provisioned as IdOp noted, correcting it should solve the problem.

[stanl]

LC_CTYPE error was just a typo. It is correct in ~/.kshrc.

I will upgrade when 6.7 comes out and see if anything changes.
Thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply. I do appreciate it.

[jggimi]

Here's how to experiment with a disabled inteldrm(4) driver:

1. At the boot> prompt, enter "-c" to enter the User Kernel Configurator during boot.
2. At the first UKC> prompt, enter "disable inteldrm"
3. At the second UKC> prompt, enter "quit". The OS boot will continue without the inteldrm(4) driver provisioned.

If you like the results, you can make them permanent. See the KERNEL MODIFICATION section of the config(8) man page. Note that this will disable kernel reordering, and will need to be performed again after any future upgrades or any kernel patches installed via syspatch(8).

[TronDD]

I have the opposite scenario.

I do not have LC_CTYPE set to en_US.UTF-8 on the console and it displays correctly.

If I do set LC_CTYPE, that's when it shows the same incorrect characters as the OP.

I don't set that varible until I start X.

[ip6ix]

What is the value of the $TERM environment variable?

I had the same problem. Setting $TERM to wsvt25 solved the problem for me:

$ TERM=wsvt25; export TERM

(For some reason it was originally set to vt220).

[stanl]

Setting TERM to wsvt25 gives me color in the console. It does nothing for my original problem unfortunately.

[Prevet]

This worked for me with tmux. tmux was displaying '?' instead of vertical lines. It also gives me color.

In my .xsession I have this:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG LC_CTYPE LC_ALL

My TERM variable was set so I commented it out. I think this change fixed the man pages where they would get messed up if I pressed page up/page down.

And I followed this advice from eduol to fix the question mark issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/com..._console_font/

"Edit /etc/ttys replacing vt220 by pccon0 and reboot to solve the question marks problem."

His sed command didn't work (perhaps it is a GNU sed command). So use your favorite editor, and back up the old file in case.

I have a question if you don't mind. Is it possible to go back to X Windows after switching to the console with Control+Alt+F2, or do you have to reboot? Perhaps I should just type cwm.

[ip6ix]

Originally Posted by Prevet

I have a question if you don't mind. Is it possible to go back to X Windows after switching to the console with Control+Alt+F2, or do you have to reboot? Perhaps I should just type cwm.

No don't do that. Usually X11 runs on vt05 (see the setting in /etc/X11/xenodm/Xservers).
Simply press Control+Alt+F5 to get back to X.