I am a linux and C newbie programming a console application that needs to get data from an embedded controller and display it. I would like to display the data in a large font, along with a small-text menu and some other things. I don't need a GUI and would like to avoid loading the entire graphic system if possible. I'm shooting for the smallest installation I can get, since it will have to run off a flash drive. I realize that this question covers a lot of territory, and I'm really looking more for a pointer to some pertinent reading material than a direct answer. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I don't think you can use varying fonts in CLI.

I don't think you can use varying fonts in CLI.

This isn't exactly what you want, but depending on your tty it does do some things
ANSI escape sequences:

http://www.dee.ufcg.edu.br/~rrbrandt/tools/ansi.html

If your terminal reponds to the clear command, then it "knows" about some of these sequences. stty can enable them as well.

Or use ncurses. It's a library that caters for your type of stuff.
Check with locate ncurses if it's installed on your system.

Thanks for your replies. It seems that there are some packages out there (SVGAlib, directfb, sdl) that might do what I need. I'll have to read up on them and see what's what. This was easy to do in DOS BASIC 15 years ago. That's progress!