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I have a high resolution screen on my laptop (3200x1800px) and I disabled the boot-image
( How do I disable the boot splash screen, and only show kernel and boot text instead? )

I also managed to enlarge the font in grub by uncommenting the line 

GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

in /etc/default/grub

But the boot messages during startup are still really tiny and hardly readeable. The same as if I change to a console screen by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1.

How can I enlarge the font on the console too?

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5
  • Out of curiosity, are you using EFI mode in your BIOS?
    – Enterprise
    Nov 12, 2014 at 3:54
  • I think i turned it off in BIOS
    – rubo77
    Nov 12, 2014 at 7:13
  • OK. One of the benefits of EFI is to allow grub to access your video card's capabilities early in the boot process, allowing for higher resolutions during boot. If you had not turned it off, I was going to suggest you do. If the "GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep" approach did not help, see if there is a Legacy Compatibility Mode (or some similar name); if you can enable that, it might make grub think you don't have EFI support in your video card. Depending on your BIOS, you might be able to disable EFI support specifically for your video card.
    – Enterprise
    Nov 12, 2014 at 15:33
  • don't think it has to do with it, In the beginning of the boot process the first 100 lines are still in a good geadeable font, but then later it switches to 3200x1900 and then you cannot read anything any more. I would like to change that second step to a larger font
    – rubo77
    Nov 12, 2014 at 17:10
  • Related: askubuntu.com/questions/63824/…
    – rubo77
    Nov 25, 2014 at 19:58

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
6

You can configure the font on tty console with

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

leave all settings as they are but the last one, where you can chose the size.

(You have to reboot to get the new font on your console.)

Update:

This doesn't seem to work anymore on 15.04, but you can install the custom Ubuntu fonts for your console:

sudo apt-get install fonts-ubuntu-font-family-console

And create a script /usr/local/bin/fontset with this command:

#!/bin/sh
setfont /usr/share/consolefonts/Uni3-TerminusBold32x16.psf.gz

(choose the desired font out of the folder /usr/share/consolefonts/)

You can either call fontset each time on your console after using Ctrl+Alt+F1

or add these lines to your ~/.profile:

#load larger font on tty
if [ "$TERM" == "linux" ]; then 
 #sleep 1 # add this if you have problems
 /usr/local/bin/fontset
fi

This starts your script only if you are on a tty console.

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0
0

#1 - install the right font and size to the grub. (30 denotes the font size, which works for me. If you want it bigger, just increase it.).

sudo grub-mkfont -s 30 -o /boot/grub/DejaVuSansMono.pf2 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf

#2. Edit /etc/default/grub - use sudo nano /etc/default/grub and add GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/DejaVuSansMono.pf2 while you're at it (and for good measure) also add your appropriate screen resolution on that same file too GRUB_GFXMODE="your screen resolutionx32" which will look something like GRUB_GFXMODE=3840x2160x32 . On the line below it add GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX="keep". The "keep" command is important bc your grub can throw errors without it.

#3. Update your grub sudo update-grub Now reboot, sit back, and revel in the beauty of being able to actually read your grub screen!

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1
  • This only answers the grub part.
    – rubo77
    Jul 3, 2022 at 8:19

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