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I have my Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 with GNOME 3.20 installation setup so that I get the verbose console output on startup (I upgraded from 15.10 where I already had it enabled). During the upgrade somewhere close to the end (I was in a TTY) I suddenly noticed that all the text had lost its normal bold and was just normal (without the bold), this does actually make it somewhat harder to read. And when my machine starts up for the first half of the output it is bold, but then suddenly it goes to this normal font.

Is this meant to be the case or is this a bug? And whether it's meant to be the case or not, is there any way to change it back to always being bold (this is the case in all my TTYs)?

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  • I have noticed this on many Linux distros, so this does not occure only in Ubuntu. (Remember seen in older Ubuntu, Kali, Grafeno Linux ...) Jun 8, 2016 at 11:05
  • I think it is the way it works: the first messages are sent to the video buffer in native mode. Then a graphics driver becomes ready and takes over, allowing the OS to format text as it prefers. (not sure of the terminology here.) It is certainly not a Ubuntu-only issue.
    – Jos
    Jun 8, 2016 at 11:36
  • @Jos: "to format text as it prefers", so can I set the preference?
    – user364819
    Jun 8, 2016 at 16:41
  • Yes, although you would probably need to recompile the console logging utility for that.
    – Jos
    Jun 8, 2016 at 16:48
  • @Jos: What is the utility called and how would I set my preference?
    – user364819
    Jun 8, 2016 at 22:52

1 Answer 1

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You will notice this happening when the OS is able to set a font that it prefers, if you would like to keep the font as it is run:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -p medium console-setup

Then select the Do not change the boot/kernel font option from the list of options, unless of course another of the options there is more appealing for you, in which case you may choose one of them to decide which font it changes it to. Otherwise choosing the option I have mentioned will mean that the font at the beginning (in this case the bold font) will be the font always used in the console and it will not change to another. This is the font set in the BIOS.

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