setupcon cannot handle large fonts in FONT, "putfont: KDFONTOP: Invalid argument"

[Ben Harris]

When I specify a large font file using the FONT variable in .console-setup, setupcon fails to load the font, reporting "putfont: KDFONTOP: Invalid argument". If I specify the same font by setting CODESET, FONTFACE, and FONTSIZE, the setupcon loads it fine.

For instance, if I have the following files:

bjh21@sole:~$ tail .console-setup.test*
==> .console-setup.test1 <==
VERBOSE_OUTPUT="no"
ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1-6]"
CHARMAP="UTF-8"
CODESET="Uni2"
FONTFACE="Terminus"
FONTSIZE="32x16"

==> .console-setup.test2 <==
VERBOSE_OUTPUT="no"
ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1-6]"
CHARMAP="UTF-8"
FONT=Uni2-Terminus32x16.psf.gz

==> .console-setup.test3 <==
VERBOSE_OUTPUT="no"
ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1-6]"
CHARMAP="UTF-8"
FONT=Uni2-Terminus16.psf.gz

Running "setupcon test1" correctly loads Uni2-Terminus32x16, but "setupcon test2" does not, reporting "putfont: KDFONTOP: Invalid argument". "setupcon test3" works, demonstrating that not all uses of FONT are broken.

I've attached the verbose output from "setupcon -v test2".

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: console-setup 1.178ubuntu2.9
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-88.88-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-88-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.11
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: Unity:Unity7:ubuntu
Date: Thu Feb 27 20:40:08 2020
DistributionChannelDescriptor:
 # This is a distribution channel descriptor
 # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
 canonical-oem-motts-20100121-3
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2010-06-09 (3550 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu GNU/Linux 9.10 "Karmic" - Build i386 LIVE Binary 20100121-21:52
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: console-setup
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Ben Harris (bjh21.me.uk)]

I notice that the output from setupcon mentions loading the font twice. That seems to correspond to this fragment of code in setupcon:

# FONTFILES
FONTFILES=''
if [ "$FONT" ]; then
    for f in $FONT; do
        FONTFILES="$FONTFILES `findfile $fontdir $f`"
        RES=`findfile $fontdir $f`
        if [ -z "$RES" ]; then
            fdec="${f%.gz}"
            RES=`findfile $fontdir $fdec`
        fi
        FONTFILES="$FONTFILES $RES"
    done
fi

It looks to me like this will add each font file to FONTFILES twice, once in the first line of the loop body, and once in the last.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.