Linux – How to list console and kernel fonts

GitHub Gist: How to change cursor shape, color, and blinkrate of Linux Console

I define the following cursor formatting settings in my .bashrc file (or /etc/bashrc):

##############
# pretty prompt and font colors
##############

# alter the default colors to make them a bit prettier
echo -en "\e]P0000000" #black
echo -en "\e]P1D75F5F" #darkred
echo -en "\e]P287AF5F" #darkgreen
echo -en "\e]P3D7AF87" #brown
echo -en "\e]P48787AF" #darkblue
echo -en "\e]P5BD53A5" #darkmagenta
echo -en "\e]P65FAFAF" #darkcyan
echo -en "\e]P7E5E5E5" #lightgrey
echo -en "\e]P82B2B2B" #darkgrey
echo -en "\e]P9E33636" #red
echo -en "\e]PA98E34D" #green
echo -en "\e]PBFFD75F" #yellow
echo -en "\e]PC7373C9" #blue
echo -en "\e]PDD633B2" #magenta
echo -en "\e]PE44C9C9" #cyan
echo -en "\e]PFFFFFFF" #white
clear #for background artifacting

# set the default text color. this only works in tty (eg $TERM == "linux"), not pts (eg $TERM == "xterm")
setterm -background black -foreground green -store

# http://linuxgazette.net/137/anonymous.html
cursor_style_default=0 # hardware cursor (blinking)
cursor_style_invisible=1 # hardware cursor (blinking)
cursor_style_underscore=2 # hardware cursor (blinking)
cursor_style_lower_third=3 # hardware cursor (blinking)
cursor_style_lower_half=4 # hardware cursor (blinking)
cursor_style_two_thirds=5 # hardware cursor (blinking)
cursor_style_full_block_blinking=6 # hardware cursor (blinking)
cursor_style_full_block=16 # software cursor (non-blinking)

cursor_background_black=0 # same color 0-15 and 128-infinity
cursor_background_blue=16 # same color 16-31
cursor_background_green=32 # same color 32-47
cursor_background_cyan=48 # same color 48-63
cursor_background_red=64 # same color 64-79
cursor_background_magenta=80 # same color 80-95
cursor_background_yellow=96 # same color 96-111
cursor_background_white=112 # same color 112-127

cursor_foreground_default=0 # same color as the other terminal text
cursor_foreground_cyan=1
cursor_foreground_black=2
cursor_foreground_grey=3
cursor_foreground_lightyellow=4
cursor_foreground_white=5
cursor_foreground_lightred=6
cursor_foreground_magenta=7
cursor_foreground_green=8
cursor_foreground_darkgreen=9
cursor_foreground_darkblue=10
cursor_foreground_purple=11
cursor_foreground_yellow=12
cursor_foreground_white=13
cursor_foreground_red=14
cursor_foreground_pink=15

cursor_styles="\e[?${cursor_style_full_block};${cursor_foreground_black};${cursor_background_green};c" # only seems to work in tty

# http://www.bashguru.com/2010/01/shell-colors-colorizing-shell-scripts.html
prompt_foreground_black=30
prompt_foreground_red=31
prompt_foreground_green=32
prompt_foreground_yellow=33
prompt_foreground_blue=34
prompt_foreground_magenta=35
prompt_foreground_cyan=36
prompt_foreground_white=37

prompt_background_black=40
prompt_background_red=41
prompt_background_green=42
prompt_background_yellow=43
prompt_background_blue=44
prompt_background_magenta=45
prompt_background_cyan=46
prompt_background_white=47

prompt_chars_normal=0
prompt_chars_bold=1
prompt_chars_underlined=4 # doesn't seem to work in tty
prompt_chars_blinking=5 # doesn't seem to work in tty
prompt_chars_reverse=7

prompt_reset=0

#start_prompt_coloring="\e[${prompt_chars_bold};${prompt_foreground_black};${prompt_background_green}m"
start_prompt_styles="\e[${prompt_chars_bold}m" # just use default background and foreground colors
end_prompt_styles="\e[${prompt_reset}m"

PS1="${start_prompt_styles}[\u@\h \W] \$${end_prompt_styles}${cursor_styles} "

##############
# end pretty prompt and font colors
##############

Maybe it is deprecated by grub2, however it should still work and must continue to work. It works for me using grub2 and debian wheezy as well as rhel7.3 (confirmed 01-2017). Also according to the official documentation it is not deprecated:

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/x86/boot.txt

If the command line provided by the boot loader is entered by the user, the user may expect the following command line options to work. They should normally not be deleted from the kernel command line even though not all of them are actually meaningful to the kernel.

vga= here is either an integer (in C notation, either decimal, octal, or hexadecimal) or one of the strings "normal" (meaning 0xFFFF), "ext" (meaning 0xFFFE) or "ask" (meaning 0xFFFD). This value should be entered into the vid_mode field, as it is used by the kernel before the command line is parsed.

And https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/svga.txt will tell you all you need to know. Below a few examples of resolutions I commonly use:

vga=0x31b --> 1280x1024x32
vga=0x34d --> 1600x900x32
vga=0x31e --> 1600x1200x32

To get a list of supported modes use:

vga=ask

For a 1024×768x24 screen which I found works on pretty much all systems and monitors I use (this time in decimal and in hex):

vga=792
vga=0x318