Re: [Bug-apl] Linux console APL

[David B. Lamkins]

You're running a terminal emulator. The console to which I'm referring is the 
canonical Linux console that you get on a system without X, or by pressing 
Ctrl-Alt-F1 through Ctrl-Alt-F6 in most graphical desktop environments.

For more context, look at the README-3-keyboard file in the GNU APL 
distribution; section 5: loadkeys.

On Sat, Jul 30, 2016 at 10:15:51AM -0500, Blake McBride wrote:
> I am not sure I understand what you are talking about with respect to
> "start_unicode".  I literally do nothing except run GNU APL with atk.  That's
> all I ever need.  It does everything.  The console/terminal program that comes
> with LinuxMint works fine.  All of the APL characters appear as expected.
> 
> Blake
> 
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 12:12 AM, David B. Lamkins <address@hidden>
> wrote:
> 
>     I thought I'd share this (new to me) discovery...
> 
>     I've experimented with running APL in the Linux console. In the past I've
>     followed the advice to download the APL console font and use the
>     start_unicode command. That works fine, of course. The only inconvenience
>     is having to run start_unicode again to restore the normal console font.
> 
>     But fbterm offers an alternative. This is a terminal emulator that runs in
>     the console's frame buffer. It's fully aware of modern Linux fonts, which
>     means that I can use GNU FreeMono to get the APL glyphs. What's really
>     interesting, I think, is that fbterm searches all of your installed fonts
>     looking for a font to present each character. I'm not clear on the 
> details,
>     but it ends up choosing (at least on my system) some very nice glyphs for
>     both APL and non-APL characters without needing to fiddle with FreeType
>     rendering options.
> 
>     On top of that, fbterm supports up to ten windows. That means I don't have
>     to remember to run a multiplexer (screen, dvtm, tmux).
> 
>     In Fedora 24, I installed fbterm and fbterm-udevrules. The latter ensures
>     that fbterm has access the framebuffer when you run it as a non-root user.
> 
>     In case you're asking "why bother?": I'm trying to move away from GUIs for
>     most of my work. I run X now primarily to interact with "rich" web content
>     (primarily Facebook and Youtube). I find that not having a full-featured
>     web browser a keystroke away helps me to concentrate on my work. That, and
>     the console just "feels faster" than even a tiling window manager.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> References:
> 
> [1] mailto:address@hidden