[linux tip] best fullscreen mode

[twipley]

Linux users might want to follow these steps to have nice fullscreen. Perhaps some other way does it as fine, but here is how to do it to get "classic" results (without interpolation!).

First, install Virtualbox v5.0 then, install Windows inside (I've used XP). Users have pushed hard for v5 to feature no interpolation (such as bicubic or bilinear) on the scaling. If you have a 1080p (or alike) monitor, put the scaling slider up to 200%. Virtualbox will be doing nearest-neighbor scaling, which means every ASCII pixel will just be doubled up on each axis, keeping all the original details.

This way the 1080p monitor is almost filled up with the game, with unnoticeable black bars on all sides. The Ubuntu version would not let me have a nice fullscreen like this. Just thought I'd share!

[savageorange]

I just fullscreen it (Arch linux x86_64, AwesomeWM). It fits .. exactly (which is what is supposed to happen when you set tile_window_height and tile_window_width to 0).
But that is tiles (1680x1050 screen)

WIth ascii. any decent terminal-emulator supports font zooming. Zoom in to about the right height, then modify the view_max_width/ view_max_height variables to taste. To make that easily reproducible, create a script that launches the terminal emulator with the font size you arrived at.

I mean, whatever works for you, but I really .. would not run anything in Virtualbox when I can run it natively, ever.

[twipley]

What put me off was that the default background colour of the default Ubuntu and Linux-Mint console, being called (I believe) "gnome-terminal," was a grey. I have found out it can be easily changed!

a) At first I went to Windows XP as I figured it might feature better or more-accepted fonts, due to its popularity. Are the fonts changing, between OSes? Are the default DCSS fonts better in Ubuntu, or is a change warranted?

b) What still puts me off is that adding the PPA, I am fearing Crawl will automatically update itself to new stable releases. The VirtualBox website, incidentally, as an example offers .deb installer files for software which do not automatically update itself. Automatic DCSS updating would, I fear, corrupt any ongoing game progress.

[neil]

What put me off was that the default background colour of the default Ubuntu and Linux-Mint console, being called (I believe) "gnome-terminal," was a grey. I have found out it can be easily changed!

a) At first I went to Windows XP as I figured it might feature better or more-accepted fonts, due to its popularity. Are the fonts changing, between OSes? Are the default DCSS fonts better in Ubuntu, or is a change warranted?

b) What still puts me off is that adding the PPA, I am fearing Crawl will automatically update itself to new stable releases. The VirtualBox website, incidentally, as an example offers .deb installer files for software which do not automatically update itself. Automatic DCSS updating would, I fear, corrupt any ongoing game progress.

a) The tiles version of Crawl ships its own fonts, which are the same on every platform. Console fonts are up to the OS and terminal emulator, but typically you can change the terminal's font. And you can install the Windows fonts on Linux, though I don't know whether the fonts' licenses permit that. Search for "Consolas on ubuntu" for example.

b) When you add our PPA, you specify which version you want, for example "deb https://crawl.develz.org/debian crawl 0.16". Then you will get automatic updates to new builds of 0.16 (which contain only bugfixes and will never break save compatibility), but not to 0.17.

c) That said, upgrading to a new version should not corrupt ongoing saves; though there will be changes: removed monsters will disappear, removed spells will be non-functional, etc; and of course there are occasionally bugs. If it's working properly, it should either transfer your save to the new version (after prompting you, since you won't be able to go back); or tell you the save won't work with this version and leave it unchanged.

[twipley]

Thanks for the info!

Just for reference, I'm leaving that here: http://omarrr.com/top-7-open-source-mon ... evelopers/

In Ubuntu, the "DejaVu Sans Mono" font is available, by default, as an option. One can switch from "Ubuntu Mono Regular" to that (depending on their tastes), disable the scrollbar, and perform other such tweaks to, probably, achieve a decent fullscreen experience.

Thanks for having opened my eyes, people, to the superfluousness of VirtualBox in this case!

[twipley]

Upon random browsing, I've fell on: http://crawl.develz.org/debian/pool/0.16/c/crawl/

Which contains, interestingly, .deb files.

EDIT: discussion about how to achieve the best fullscreen experience, continued over at: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17104