i’m wondering if it will be an easy task to increase the font size direct from the beginning of the bootprozess? For me it is really hard to read when inputting the passphrase. As long everything works, it is only “not nice”, but if something goes wrong i would need a magnifier on a bad day. hopefully someone tells me, just change it in this file and reboot the unicorn 
This is a known problem: Please allow configuring font on pocket reform (#4) · Issues · Reform / MNT Reform Tools · GitLab
Unfortunately, there is no good solution right now. A good solution would be for console-setup to set the font size depending on what display is currently rendering the console. The problem has been known at least since 2017: #859458 - Because of displays with very high dpi, not only the keyboard, but the font has to be configured early - Debian Bug report logs
One thing that could be done is to set the console font to a bigger size on the pocket reform, which is this issue: should set console font on Pocket Reform (#18) · Issues · Reform / MNT Reform Setup Wizard · GitLab The problem with that is, that this will make the console font large on all outputs including HDMI screens with sufficiently low dpi that this is not necessary, so this is just a workaround.
Another workaround is initramfs: Load font early on Pocket Reform (3aa0b0e3) · Commits · Reform / MNT Reform Tools · GitLab which will be part of the next reform-tools release but that is also just a workaround…
More developer time is certainly needed for a 100% satisfying solution here.
5 Likes
For me the font size during the boot process was big enough and readable. After some update though it became tiny. Now, reform-check outputs this:
kernel boot parameters your system does use but which are not the default:
- fbcon=font:TER16x32
- console=ttymxc1
Does this maybe mean that the fontsize got smaller somehow? Any way to change that and make it larger again?
Hi,
You have to tell us which platform you are on (reform-check tells you this at the top). But if you are on the pocket, then the parameter fbcon=font:TER16x32 is good and there is a bug in reform-tools. I need to know your platform and your reform-tools version before i can fix it.
We talked about a similar issue a few days ago on IRC. See this message and following:
To fix it, you might want to try running this on your system:
sudo sed -i -e 's/^FONTFACE=.*/FONTFACE=/' -e 's/^FONTSIZE=.*/FONTSIZE=/' /etc/default/console-setup
It would be useful to know how your /etc/default/console-setup looks right now.
1 Like
Ah yes, I am on i.MX8MP Pocket Reform! And the reform-tools version is: 1.67-1+reform1
The console-setup looks like this:
ACTIVE_CONSOLES=“/dev/tty[1-6]”
CHARMAP=“UTF-8”
CODESET=“guess”
FONTFACE=“Fixed”
FONTSIZE=“8x16”
VIDEOMODE=
Thank you! In that case, the fbcon=font:TER16x32 is expected and I have to adjust reform-tools. Can you paste me the complete output of this command:
cat /proc/cmdline
But I don’t understand where console=ttymxc1 is coming from. Did you set this manually in /etc/default/u-boot?
Interesting. No comments in that file?
This is what makes your font small. By running the sed command above, these lines should become:
FONTFACE=
FONTSIZE=
And that should fix your problem. Can you confirm?
The output of the command looks like this:
ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests loglevel=3 ro no_console_suspend pci=pcie_bus_perf nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0 console=tty1 fbcon=rotate:3 fbcon=font:TER16x32 cma=256MB console=ttymxc1 console=tty1
No, I didn’t set it manually on /etc/default/u-boot.
Sorry! The entire console-setup has indeed comments:
# CONFIGURATION FILE FOR SETUPCON
# Consult the console-setup(5) manual page.
ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1-6]"
CHARMAP="UTF-8"
CODESET="guess"
FONTFACE=
FONTSIZE=
VIDEOMODE=
# The following is an example how to use a braille font
# FONT='lat9w-08.psf.gz brl-8x8.psf'
And yes, the sed command fixed the font size, thanks! Just one other thing; I have now a strange symbol next to the battery status on swaybar, after running the sed command and rebooting, I don’t know if that’s related! 
Thank you, I found it now. In include/configs/nitrogen8mp.h, CONFIG_MXC_UART_BASE is set to UART2_BASE_ADDR and that in turn sets BD_CONSOLE to ttymxc1. And then in CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS, console is set to BD_CONSOLE and thus ttymxc1. In /boot/boot.scr, if console is set, then console=${console} gets appended to $bootargs.
The erroneous reform-check output will be fixed with the next reform-tools release, thank you!
Unlikely. Can you post a picture of how that looks like?
2 Likes
Great, happy to help!
The battery status indicator issue fixed itself! 
Since we are on it: reform-check also outputs this:
I: the following files differ from how they are shipped by reform-tools:
??5?????? /var/lib/alsa/asound.state
Can you retry running with the latest version of reform-tools and see if the extra output helps you with this question?
My bad, did not realize I wasn’t running the latest version!
Run the latest version and that message is not there anymore. Only the first two I mentioned above!
Hey! Sorry for necro’ing this thread, but I’m seeing similar issues and wanted a place to paste my reform-check output other than IRC.
This is the output I see when I run the check:
I: Contents of /proc/device-tree/model: MNT Pocket Reform with i.MX8MP Module
I: `uname -a` output: Linux zephyr 6.15.6-mnt-reform-arm64 #1 SMP Debian 6.15.6-1~exp1+reform20250719T140750Z (2025-07-19) aarch64 GNU/Linux
I: Version of linux-image-mnt-reform-arm64: 6.15.6-1~exp1+reform20250719T140750Z
I: Version of reform-tools: 1.76-1+reform20250622T103710Z+1
I: Mount source of /: /dev/reformvg/root (LVM vg 'reformvg' on LUKS device 'reform_crypt' on SSD)
I: Mount source of /boot: /dev/mmcblk2p1 (eMMC)
I: the following files differ from how they are shipped by reform-tools (ignore /var/lib/alsa/asound.state):
??5?????? /var/lib/alsa/asound.state
I: kernel boot parameters which are the default but your system doesn't use them:
- fbcon=font:TER16x32
- console=ttymxc1
Things seem to be working OK, but I want to make sure reform-check is in a happy state to avoid any confusion in future updates. I’ve confirmed the ${bootargs} mentioned above are in my version of reform-tools, but I’m not sure the correct way to have them used when booting:
root@zephyr:/usr/share/reform-tools/machines# egrep fbcon 'MNT Pocket Reform with i.MX8MP Module.conf'
BOOTARGS="ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests pci=pcie_bus_perf nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0 console=tty1 fbcon=rotate:3 fbcon=font:TER16x32 cma=256MB console=ttymxc1"
It is totally fine to create your own new thread.
Replying to an existing thread has the risk that your problem is not exactly the same as the one that the thread is about.
What are your issues? Just the font size or more than that?
What is in your /proc/cmdline?
Hey! Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back.
My /proc/cmdline is:
ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests ro no_console_suspend pci=pcie_bus_perf nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0 console=tty1 fbcon=rotate:3 cma=256MB console=tty1
As far as my “issue”… I guess there technically isn’t one, other than reform-check reporting issues. There’s nothing that’s broken as far as I can tell, I’m just trying to get a clean reform-check after setting up a new nvme drive as my boot drive.
I suspect I know what’s going on. Currently, reform-check does not tell you about an outdated u-boot on platforms where flashing a new version is not without risk. imx8m+ is such a platform. I patched reform-check to also tell you about outdated uboot in situations where flashing might be risky. If you like, you can try out that version and paste the output you get when running it. This is the MR: bin/reform-check: also warn about outdated u-boot on platforms where updating... (!140) · Merge requests · Reform / MNT Reform Tools · GitLab
To download you could wget this: https://source.mnt.re/reform/reform-tools/-/raw/2f394b809627a8c6d4d2566ed5192b6c048a96f2/bin/reform-check