What handles virtual console cursor specifics?

Question

In the Linux source code, specifically in linux/drivers/video/console/vgacon.c, there is a switch case block for cursor shapes. Each of these shapes are rectangles of the same width and varying heights. Clearly, Linux handles the height of the cursor, but does it handle the width? Does Linux choose the width, or does the GPU decide? Does this vary between the other *.cons, (some of which have switch cases of cursors)?

Answer 1

In vgacon, the hardware chooses the width, and it’s always the full width of a character cell — that’s all that VGA supports. mdacon is similar, for the same reason.

Other console implementations with cursor size handling can be found by looking for CUR_UNDERLINE. Some of them, such as fbcon, could theoretically support cursors of varying widths too, but they all match the behaviour of the original Linux console (the VGA one) and use a fixed width.