Is there a way to make the menu in piCore larger?

[meo]

Thanks to you guys I now have an installation tweaked almost to perfection according to my wishes. There is something though that would make it perfect. I would like to make the menu bigger since I use an old but working 32" flatscreen TV as monitor. If that can be done I could sit comfy in an armchair 4 meters away and still see well enough to use this, piCore, technology to satisfy my hunger for INFORMATION. Coming to think of it, making the text in the terminal window bigger, would also be good and now I'm thinking of permanent solutions hacking some obscure config files or what it takes. I have been away to long from TC to remember such things. I used to have two virtual harddrives that mounted automatically at boot when I used TC x86 before so I could encrypt and stowe away info that was confidential. I don't handle much of this things now though. So any help regarding making the menu bigger and the same for the size of the font in the terminal would be perfect! Thanks beforehand! You are the best!!! // meo

[meo]

I've tried to find the right config files to be able to enlarge the TC menu and the font in the terminal but without luck. If anyone could give me a hint I'd be more than grateful. Thanks beforehand!!! // meo

[polikuo]

This is what I do.
I scale down the resolution to 1280X720 in the RPI config file

Code: [Select]

hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=4


[meo]

Thanks policuo! That took care of two birds with one stone. Greatly appreciated!!! // meo

[meo]

Hi polikuo! The change in the config file you suggested worked but it slowed down the typing and scrolling from my keyboard so I changed it back to original and after a little pondering i uncommented the lines with framebuffer changing to almost the same resolution. Now it works perfect and I can sit in my armchair with my cordless keyboard and do whatever. Thanks for putting me on the right track!!! // meo


PS This time I got your name right too DS

[meo]

Well finally I had to settle for hdmi_mode5 to get things to work properly. The size of the menu is at least big enough for me to be able to read it. Not sujre what the resolution is but as long as it works I'm happy. Now the there is no visible lagging at least. // meo

[polikuo]

PS This time I got your name right too DS

No worries.

Just wanna say, for the wbar icons, you can tune it with the control panel.
For font size, it tend to get complicated.
Thus, I scale down my resolution since I don't really need that much.

[meo]

I have returned to the original settings (with the exception that I use overscan to adjust the screen). I don't know why it was lagging when the settings were changed. Now it works just fine and I can live with the smaller fonts. If needed my armchair is light so I can move it closer to the TV. // meo

[aus9]

I am not sure which desktop you are on, but you can get larger fonts.

fonts can be configured for certain apps and also affected by screen resolution.
I do not wish to overload you so instead here is a screenshot of jwm with feh controlling wallpaper xrandr controlling screen resolution. If any of this interests you....I will guide you.
Note I do not connect to a TV so did not set the largest zoom possible.

https://i.imgur.com/YcTf1Zh.jpg
there is a loss of quality in using jpeg and that is noticable in the menu text in screenshot,
in real life its quite viewable. 

2) So if interested name your desktop
Name your terminal and name your preferred font and size
Describe how you are currently getting any zoom (magnification) please?

[meo]

The RPi boots in to FLWM, aterm is the terminal (it comes all automatically when using the command, tce-load -iw TC) and I prefer the Dejavu TTF fonts (right now I have them on demand to keep a small footprint). When it comes to size doubling the present size would be perfect (I think). I only use zoom in firefox so the fonts there doesn't need any change. I tried different resolutions but now I everything but overscan is default in conf.txt. When I tried different resolutions the system started to lag (typing etc.) maybe because I use a cordless keyboard, logitech K 400+ i think it is. Well that's what I can tell you. If it is possible to make the menu larger etc. it would be fine. // meo

[aus9]

Yes well that is not helpful enough.

Are you using $HOME/.Xdefaults for aterm font size?
As I asked what is your size please?

2) I am not familar with a file called conf.txt.....is the same as config.txt?
If so please post the actual line that you believe gives you overscan
or does not disable overscan please

3) In the meantime, I have not used ondemand in years. My understanding is that if you are using aterm....it reads its config file on desktop launch and has NO refresh function on FLWM.
So you can not change fonts on the fly and expect to see a change if you are using .Xdefaults.
-----but you will see a change if you change resolution.....but I think you have already dismissed that idea.

4) It might still useful for you to download xrandr and post the output of

Code: [Select]

xrandr
dropping lower in the list should increase the "zoom" effect for your menu.
But I do not have a wireless kb or mouse so can not comment on your lag issue.
Sorry about that.

5) Does dmesg show any issues in your handshake for wireless kb?
It is still a usb dongle no?
So maybe you  still need a waitusb boot code?

thanks for reading

[meo]

First of all thanks for your willingness to help out. Aktually it’s the font in the terminal that is the worst. I’m glad that I’m not compiling any programs. I can imagine it would be almost impossible to install Gentoo Linux using a terminal with such a lousy font. I’ve done it on x86 computers including compiling the kernel. Actually the thought has come to mind that I would like to make my own installation of Gentoo Linux for the Rpi but that would be impossible for me with aterm as it is now.

Yes I’m using $HOME/.Xdefaults (haven’t changed it). I dont know the size of the font in aterm but I'll check. Copy below.

Aterm*scrollBar: true
Aterm*transparent: true
Aterm*title: Terminal
Aterm*foreground: white
Aterm*background: black
Aterm*font: fixed
Aterm*cursorColor: green
Aterm*fading: 70
Aterm*shading: 50
Aterm*color12: DodgerBlue1
Aterm*saveLines: 1000
fltk*scheme: gtk+
Xft.dpi: 96.0

So it's here we have the configuration for aterm. So changing it would fix the font, wouldn't it?

Sorry for the miss of the name of the config file. Yes it is config.txt. Since there wasn’t a detailed mention of overscan I put it there myself. I had to work on it for a while to get it right so I have like 1 cm of black border around the screen (the TV that is). For me that works good. Too little border and there will be some glare at the plastic around the actual screen on the TV. The disable overscan is commented out with a hash mark. #disable etc. The actual overscan is as below:

overscan_left=16
overscan_right=16
overscan_top=-8
overscan_bottom=-8

The wireless logitech keyboard uses an usb-dongle. It can be found in the output of dmesg even though that command spits out a lot of information and it’s hard to read due to a bad font even if I stand just by the screen. The font is small and fuzzy.

If there is some way to make the menu larger or more important to me fix the terminal font that would be awesome. // meo

[Rich]

Hi meo
Try changing this:

Code: [Select]

Aterm*font: fixed
To this:

Code: [Select]

Aterm*font: 10x20Then launch a new aterm to see the results.

For a list of basic fixed fonts of various sizes you can try:

Code: [Select]

tc@E310:~$ xlsfonts | grep -E "[0-9]x[0-9]" | uniq
10x20
12x24
5x7
5x8
6x10
6x12
6x13
6x13bold
6x9
7x13
7x13bold
7x14
7x14bold
8x13
8x13bold
8x16
9x15
9x15bold
tc@E310:~$That is the list returned on my x86 system, piCore may be different.

[meo]

Thanks a lot Rich!!! 10x20 works perfect in aterm for me. Now there might be some compiling of source code! // meo

[Rich]

Hi meo
You are welcome. Glad I could help.