[syslinux] Display borked when loading FONT

[Didier Spaier]

On 24/05/2013 16:29, appzer0 wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am a happy user of syslinux since 3.x. I've been able to load a font to display French accented charecters since then, but it not the case anymore, as problems have started to raise with syslinux 5.x.
> program : EXTLINUX, ISOLINUX (same behaviour)
>
> In extlinux.conf, the culprit is :
 >
> FONT=lat9w16
 >
> This font is taken from 'kbd' package, named lat9w-16.psfu. It contains a UTF-8 table, usually ignored by extlinux, but maybe it is not the case anymore? As usual, extlinux.conf is written using an ISO-8859-1 encoding, not UTF-8.
> All .c32 modules are present in /boot/extlinux/, next to extlinux.conf itself. 'extlinux --install' reports no errors.
>
> Result: It displays large vertical white bars and _every_ character is borked (but each boot, the same characters are wrongly interpreted the same, no random display here, even on the unaccented ones). The Fix is easy : comment the FONT= line in, then extlinux is OK, but obviously there are no more accents. :-/
>
> I need the French accented characters, namely éèêàâùûôç. At worst, I could drop the accented letters but I'd be very sad to.
>
> Tested on syslinux 5.01 and 5.10-pre2. This is the first time ever that I run into this problem with syslinux. Please find the extlinux.conf I use below.
>
Hello/Salut,

I had somehow the same problem but with ISOLOINX/text files like message.txt (in Slackware's installer).

I believe that the UTF-8 table possibly included in a font is still ignored.

I ended up using terminus fonts, but without UTF-8 mapping. E.g. (excerpt from isolinux.conf)

default huge.s
prompt 1
timeout 1200
display message.txt
FONT ter_i16v.psf
F1 message.txt
F2 f2.txt
F3 f3.txt
F4 f4.txt

ter-i maps cp437, but I think you can use others as well (I use that in Slackware's internationalized installer, see http://slint.fr)

for instance ter-i* maps ISO-8859-15 so you can even display the euro sign (même si cela ne te servira peut-être à rien :-)

As you know terminus font is included in slackware-current.

Now, I must admit that I use syslinux 4, so maybe what I wrote above is not relevant. Sorry for the noise, then.

Good luck/Bon courage,

Didier