[GLLUG] FreeBSD console res

[Matt Graham]

On Monday 16 September 2002 09:43, after a long battle with technology, 
Jo Dillon wrote:
> On 15 Sep 2002 at 16:55, Mike Szumlinski wrote:
>> Does anyone know how/where to up the resolution of the console on
>> FreeBSD?  I did a quick google with no luck.  Its currently at the
>> default 640x480, and I'd like to kick it up to 1280x1024 or
>> something. Thanks.
>
> Hmm, so the VESA support in FreeBSD lets you change the resolution
> at runtime? Does anybody know why the Linux VESA framebuffer can only
> set the resolution once at boot? :)

The Linux VESA framebuffer support uses real-mode BIOS calls to set the 
screen resolution before the kernel is fully loaded, which is why you 
have to build VESA fb support into the kernel, not as a module.  The 
code's in /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/video.S .  These BIOS calls 
might not be accessible once the kernel's loaded and the system is 
totally in protected mode.

However, the "fbset" utility on Linux might actually do something... or 
not.  "ioctl FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO : Invalid argument" when I tried it, 
but then I'm using a SuSE-patched kernel on this machine with possibly 
non-standard framebuffer stuff.  Well, since the folks at MIT invented 
xterms, I use the virtual consoles to run "X -configure" and very 
little else.

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