I have installed noto-fonts-cjk but the Linux kernel terminal won’t display Japanese/Chinese characters.

Environment:
ThinkPad T480
Arch Linux

Edit: I managed to track down this page https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Linux_console and realize that I need to setfont. Now I just need to find which one in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts can display Japanese, I suppose.

Edit2: looked through https://adeverteuil.github.io/linux-console-fonts-screenshots/ to no avail.

Edit3: this thread https://askubuntu.com/questions/193391/how-do-i-display-chinese-japanese-characters-in-a-linux-vt-console hints at this not being a possibility, because - paraphrased - the framebuffer can’t hold 2000 characters, which is what I would like it to be able to display.

Edit4: as pointed out in the above askubuntu thread, and as @mina86@lemmy.wtf secondarily recommends, fbterm seems to be the solution: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fbterm

Edit5: kmscon also seems to be able to display CJK: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KMSCON

Marking as SOLVED, but I have not yet tried replacing the Linux kernel terminal. That’ll have to wait until next weekend.

  • mina86@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    3·
    17 hours ago

    Terminal and console are two different things. Console is what you get if your computer boots up in text mode. Terminal is what you start inside graphical environment (X or Wayland). Which one are you having issues with? What does echo $TERM output? If it’s the former, how are you watching videos exactly? O_o If it’s the latter, setfont won’t do anything; you need to look at configuration of your terminal emulator or try a different one.

    • durinn@programming.devOPEnglish
      1·
      17 hours ago

      Well, then it’s the console. mpv runs directly from the console (maybe it starts the X server in the background without it being obvious, no idea).

      echo $TERM says linux.

        • durinn@programming.devOPEnglish
          2·
          17 hours ago

          Thanks! If and when I really need to display Japanese, I’ll switch to my graphical environment. My old T480 is having a hard time playing 4K vids unless I play them directly from the console, for some reason…

          I’ll check out fbterm too!