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For example, Impulse Tracker for DOS was a nice music production app that was among the first to create a smooth mouse using glyphs generated on the fly in the characters located near the current position of the mouse. (Read here for a better description of what I mean).

So, I'm just wondering if that can be done in Linux terminals (e.g. the tty1-6 terminals or Gnome Terminal). Is it possible?

(EDIT: Should I post this on unix.stackexchange.com instead?)

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closed as off topic by shellter, Tim Cooper, oezi, Tom Redfern, fancyPants Nov 19 '12 at 14:05


I think this will go better if you just go with a basic graphics environment. Running a simple x11+awesome with one window is possible in almost all machines. –  Linuxios Nov 19 '12 at 4:35
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1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Seeing as the terminal itself (and not the application) usually sets the font being used, I don't think this is possible. For the tty1-6 terminals, you could use a framebuffer to accomplish this, if you were that dedicated to the idea. With a terminal emulator on a desktop environment, I do not believe this is possible.

Would GPM accomplish what you're looking for, with a lot less hassle?

GPM Link 1

GPM Link 2

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That's cool, I got gpm working. However, I'd still like to know if It's possible change the glyphs for a specific character at row Y column X. Or can I change the font that gets outputted for a single character? –  trusktr Nov 19 '12 at 5:05
As far as I know, it isn't, and if my response answers your question, could you please mark it with the checkbox? –  coder543 Nov 19 '12 at 5:08
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