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Date:      Wed, 6 Jun 2001 05:18:30 -0700
From:      "Philip J. Koenig" <pjklist@ekahuna.com>
To:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: vidcontrol help
Message-ID:  <3B1DBD26.18883.3D770FE@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <bulk.45532.20010605210507@hub.freebsd.org>

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> Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 03:08:46 +0200
> From: Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.uu.se>
> Subject: Re: vidcontrol help
> 
> On Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 08:40:31PM -0400, Christopher W. Aiken wrote:
> > I'm trying to get a 90x43 display on my consol window.
> > I tried everything I could think of but can not get
> > any displays except 80x25 and 80x30.  I tried:
> > vidcontrol 90x42
> 
> Read the man page for vidcontrol(1) where they list the possible modes
> and then try 'vidcontrol VGA_90x43' and see if that works.
> (It works for me at least.)
> 
> It is also possible that your graphics card only supports a few text
> modes. There is not much demand for text mode today so many
> manufacturers don't bother to do anything fancy.
> 
> > 
> > and vidcontrol just comes back with some help.
> > 
> > Here is what I've done so far.  Any one know what
> > I'm doing wrong? BTW I'm curious why no VESA modes
> > are listed below in the "-i mode" output.
> > 
> > I rebuilt a new kernel with:
> > options         VGA_WIDTH90
> > options         VESA
> > 
> > I added these lines to my /etc/rc.conf:
> > font8x8="cp437-8x8.fnt"
> > font8x14="cp437-8x14.fnt"
> > font8x16="cp437-8x16.fnt"


Well Christopher's listing of VESA modes implies that his card 
supports 90x43, so that's a good start. (As Eric mentions, many cards 
simply don't bother with esoteric VESA modes any more, I had to try 
several (Trident, Cirrus Logic) before settling on an S3-based one 
that would do 132x43.  

I don't know about the "options  VGA_WIDTH90" parameter, I didn't
have to use anything similiar to get 132x43, just the VESA option.

Also bear in mind that some chips, even though they *act* like
they support those modes, are barely usable.  I have one box (a 
Compaq Prosignia 500 server w/embedded Cirrus Logic GD-54xx
chip) and even though it goes into 132x43, virtually every 8x8
font looks like hieroglyphics.

Also, you might try loading an 8x8 font and using the 132x43 mode.  
90x43 sounds a little unusual, you might have better success with 
that.

	vidcontrol -f 8x8 /usr/share/syscons/fonts/iso-8x8.fnt
	vidcontrol 132x43


Here's the document I use as a jumping-off point:

http://www.mostgraveconcern.com/freebsd/vidctrl.html




--
Philip J. Koenig                                       pjklist@ekahuna.com
Electric Kahuna Systems -- Computers & Communications for the New Millenium


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