Re: Display of undisplayable characters: \U01F3A8 instead of diamond

[Gregory Heytings]

> Well, actually instead of 16, since all the colours come in a normal and 
> a bright version.

Are these "bright" versions used by Emacs?  I don't think so.

> But these 256 colours will be getting used, and that means work 
> configuring faces that are not satisfactory to the user in the 256 
> colour version.

What do you mean?  It's not more necessary to configure faces in a 
terminal than to configure faces under X.  If you don't like the defaults, 
you can configure them, that's all.

> Here's the rub.  The "pixelated" fonts were designed to be used in, say, 
> an 8x16 matrix, and work very well indeed.  The "modern" fonts were 
> designed to be used in X, and work less well in fbterm on a pixelated 
> grid.

Not if you use monospaced fonts, which were designed to be used in 
terminals.

> All of the "modern" fonts available for fbterm on my machine are 
> "spidery" single pixel thick fonts.  On the lat1-16 font I've been using 
> in consoles for decades, the lines are two pixels thick.  I find this 
> much more readable.

Well, install another font?  I'd recommend DejaVu Sans Mono.

> There are several.  As mentioned above, you have to configure faces, 
> possibly a lot of them.

That's incorrect.  You don't have to configure any faces, they come 
preconfigured, just like they are preconfigured under X and for a raw 
Linux console.

> There are all the problems with fonts.  You've got to remember to hack 
> the fbterm binary each time a new version of fbterm comes out (unless 
> you've got a system like Gentoo, and arrange for this to happen 
> automatically).

If you follow the instructions in the FAQ entry, you won't have to 
remember any such hacks.

> I will probably continue using the plain Linux console, for all these 
> reasons.

You are of course free to do what you want, but you should not discourage 
others to try it.