[Linux-aus] Terminal fonts (was: 4K monitor sizes)

[Adam Nielsen]

> According to the above the DejaVu Sans and Droid Sans fonts are best for using 
> few pixels.  I was using Courier monospaced before at 8 point and now DejaVu 
> Sans at 7 point which seems more readable.  A fairly default Debian KDE setup 
> doesn't have Droid Sans.  Are there any fonts that are better for few pixels 
> than DejaVu Sans that I should try?

For terminal windows I am quite fond of the Terminus font.  Here is a
link to the screenshots comparing font sizes:

 * http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/shots.html

On Arch Linux it's available in the "terminus-font" package.  I'm sure
other distributions have it prepackaged too.  If not, you can download
it from http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/

> 4096/7=585, so with some space used by scroll bars and a panel that means I 
> get 4 terminal windows that are each 100 characters wide across a 4K display 
> with a bit of extra space for a 5th column that is partly obscured.  That also 
> gives 4 clear rows of terminals so I get clear visibility of 16 terminal 
> windows that each have 100*25 text and for partially obscured windows that's 
> another 9 more.

4K is marketing, it's actually 3840 pixels wide (by 2160 high).  Using
Terminus size 140 gives me an 8x14 pixel cell for each character, so on
a full-screen 4K terminal window that's 480 columns by 154 lines, with a
few pixels left over at the bottom of the screen.

I tend to run six terminal windows (three wide, two high) without any
window decorations, so each window is 160 characters wide by 76 tall.
A 4x4 grid like you describe would give you 120x38 character windows
with the 8x14 Terminus font, with a row or column less if you have
window borders and title bars visible, of course.

Since we're discussing setups, I use GNU Screen to get multiple virtual
terminals in the one window, so I tend to have only one window per
machine I am connected to.  I use rxvt-unicode as a terminal emulator
primarily because it lets me set a background image for the terminal,
so that I can put a different image for each machine I am connected to
via SSH.  I found it was easier to ensure I was typing commands into the
correct machine by associating that unique background with a specific
computer.  Rather than having to scan each window looking for the
hostname in the prompt or window title, just knowing that I want the
window with the picture of the pumpkins in it for my file server for
example, makes working across multiple computers much smoother for me.
Of course this works because I'm only dealing with a small number of
machines.  If you're dealing with a large number (or only one) it
probably won't be of much benefit.

Cheers,
Adam.