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Date:      Sun, 10 Apr 2005 08:56:03 -0700
From:      Jay O'Brien <jayobrien@att.net>
To:        Michal Mertl <mime@traveller.cz>
Cc:        FreeBSD - questions <questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:    Re: [PATCH TO TEST] VESA [1024x768] mode support	for	FreeBSD-CURRENT
Message-ID:  <42594C93.5070203@att.net>
In-Reply-To: <1113127599.8293.116.camel@genius2.i.cz>
References:  <0IEH00KMJ6U14XA0@store.etat.lu> <1112729834.68302.2.camel@genius2.i.cz>  <4258D61C.90301@att.net> <1113127599.8293.116.camel@genius2.i.cz>

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Michal Mertl wrote:

> Jay O'Brien wrote:
> 
>>Michal Mertl wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Didier Wiroth wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi,
>>>>
>>>>I'm using freebsd 5.4-prerelease on my laptop. My laptop has an ati
>>>>mobility radeon 9600.
>>>>Unfortunately it has very poor console vesa support. SC_PIXEL_MODE does
>>>>not work, 90x60 is the highest resolution I can get for now.
>>>>It looks like I'm not the only one having this problem with ati
>>>>chipsets:
>>>>http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=1091839+1096057+/usr/local/w
>>>>ww/db/text/2005/freebsd-questions/20050123.freebsd-questions
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I saw this posting:
>>>>http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2004-August/035621.ht
>>>>ml
>>>>
>>>>Unfortunately I'm not a programmer and have no ... to very poor patching
>>>>skills.
>>>>It looks to me, that in this posting(s) a "few" patches are grouped
>>>>together to enable vesa 1024x768.
>>>>
>>>>1) Has someone applied this patches?
>>>>2) As the patch(es) is/are on the entire page, I don't know how to
>>>>separate them. Would someone mail me as an attachment the different
>>>>patches and tell me how I should apply them:
>>>>for example, mail me patch1, patch2, patch3
>>>>and the explanation how to patch them:
>>>>cd /usr/src
>>>>patch < ~/patch1
>>>>patch < ~/patch2 ...etc
>>>
>>>
>>>I think the newest and probably best (?) patch was prepared by Xin Li
>>>(deplhij@freebsd.org) who is also committer. I sent this email to him
>>>(or she? - sorry about that) in case he has some comments. Beware that
>>>he said he experienced some problems with previous version of the patch.
>>>
>>>I haven't tested this version of the patch myself but it at least
>>>compiles.
>>>
>>>It's available at http://people.freebsd.org/~delphij/vesa/
>>>in files syscons.diff.20050215 and vidcontrol.diff.20050215
>>>
>>>You would apply them with:
>>>
>>>cd /usr/src/sys/dev/syscons
>>>patch < /path/syscons.diff.20050215
>>>cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/vidcontrol
>>>patch </path/vidcontrol.diff.20050215
>>>make clean
>>>make all
>>>make install
>>>
>>>You need also to rebuild and reinstall the kernel. You must have
>>>'options SC_PIXEL_MODE' in your kernel config. You also need to have
>>>VESA available - you can load it with kldload vesa or include it in the
>>>kernel with 'options VESA'.
>>>
>>>After reboot with the new kernel you should be able to get list of all
>>>VESA and standard modes your card support with 'vidcontrol -i mode'. To
>>>be able to use them as your console mode you need to have the
>>>appropriate font loaded. The font resolution is seen in vidcontrol
>>>output in the 'font' column. To load the font 8x8 you can use
>>>'vidcontrol -f /usr/share/syscons/fonts/cp437-8x8.fnt' or similar. To
>>>set the mode use 'vidcontrol MODE_$num' where $num is the mode number
>>>(first column in 'vidcontrol -i mode' output).
>>>
>>>HTH
>>>
>>>Michal
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>I feel like I am missing a lot here. I want to display 132 characters per 
>>line on my console. I am not running X Windows and it is not a notebook.
> 
> 
> It doesn't matter. I only saw the most complaints from notebook owners
> who didn't have text mode console covering all LCD surface.
> 
> 
>>I am running 5.3-RELEASE-p5 #0.
>>
>>What is this SC_PIXEL_MODE and where may I find documentation on it? I 
>>don't find it in /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/NOTES. 
> 
> 
> man syscons(4). It's also mentioned in NOTES although not the NOTES you
> were looking at. Don't forget that on 5.x there are two conf directories
> - one platform independent in /sys/conf and other in /sys/$ARCH/conf.
> Common (platform independent) options like this one are
> in /sys/conf/NOTES.
> 


Thanks! Now that I see that it is perhaps not required for my system, that 
is not a laptop, is it possible that I don't need this at all? Is it 
definitely needed to support 132 character terminal mode, or is just 
needed for laptops? 


> 
>>To "rebuild and reinstall the kernel", after editing my 
>>/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC to insert 'options SC_PIXEL_MODE', would I 
>>'make buildkernel' and then 'make installkernel' or is there something 
>>else I'm missing?  
> 
> 
> No, that's the way to do it.
> 
> 
>>I note that some of the messages are posted to multiple mailing lists, 
>>and I suspect that as I only read questions@freebsd.org I'm not seeing 
>>the entire story.
> 
> 
> I'm afraid that's quite possible. Please go search the archives.
> 
> 
>>Jay O'Brien 
>>Rio Linda, California USA
> 
> 
> Michal Mertl
> 
> Prague, Bohemia, Czech Republic :-)
> 

It is wonderful to be a part of a caring community that spans the 
world, without concern for international borders. Fortunately for 
me, everyone uses english; I'm stuck with only one language (plus 
international morse code, but that's another story).

Jay O'Brien
Rio Linda, California, USA



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