Linux Terminal Resolution

[htmlmasterdave]

I was hoping it's possible to change it from 1280x1024 to 1024x768, or atleast fiddle with the refresh rate since 60hz is a bit nasty. Thanks, Dave.

 

[frontwards]

control center>peripherals>display

 

[NewBlackDak]

Framebuffer support has to be compiled in to your kernel, and you have to pass the correct options to your kernel at boot time.

 

[drag]

To change the terminal resolution, it has to be done at boot-time. You do this by editing the configuration for your boot loader. I am assuming that Suse uses grub....

Different settings are:

VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga = 791
Normal VGA console
vga = normal
VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga=791
VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
vga=790
VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga=773
VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
vga=788
VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
vga=787
VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
vga=771
VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
vga=785
VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
vga=784
VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
vga=769

So buy editing /boot/grub/grub.conf or menu.lst you simply change the vga=??? part on your kernel entry to do it. Once you are finished editing the file, just save it and the changes will go into effect next time you boot. With Lilo its a bit different, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out. The only difference is that you have to run lilo command to make the changes go into effect.

Also you can change it to "vga=ask" and it will prompt you to select out of a list of possible vga settings what you want to run your console at.


Also be sure to note that this only affect the console/virtual terminals you get when you press ctrl-alt-fn were Fn=F1-F6. It should have no effect on X windows.

Although with some video cards having the framebuffer console going at the same time as X windows can lead to some pretty funky results (video corruption and stuff like that) because framebuffer interacts with the video card's memory directly and may cause severe problems. My Nvidia card suffers from that, unfortunately.

A nice thing about framebuffer is that you don't need X windows to run specific programs that require images. For instance there is a hacked version of "links" text-based browser that can display images and render websites in full color and all that on a console. Their are some simple games that can do this too. So that way if you have a very slow machine or a machine with limited RAM that can't handle the overhead of running a full X windows setup you can use the framebuffer for limited graphics.

These programs generally use the svgalib stuff and requires special "suid" bit premissions to execute some functions as super user. This can be a security concern with some setups.

 

[NewBlackDak]

vga=795 will get you 1280x1024x32k(I believe it's 32k)

If you have a radeon you should only have "VESA VGA framebuffer support", and not radeon framebufer support compiled in. startx usually hangs the machine if you're using radeon FB, and trying to use fglrx.

Also look into fbset.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

I tried entering 790, but I think it wants something else... the number before was hex, 0x31a

EDIT: Nevermind i got it to work 🙂. Is there any way to change the refresh rate? Thanks for all your help.

 

[drag]

Nothing that I know off. This stuff is pretty low-level, just interacting with the VESA type specifications that all cards have in order to be compatable.

Lowest common demominator type stuff.

One of the reasons that framebuffers aren't used a whole lot on modern hardware, you don't realy get the benifit from the many types of hardware acceleration that many modern cards feature...

I actually don't use the console a whole lot, except when I am messing arouind with X settings then I leave a root user going there. What is better is to have X terms.

On my laptop for instance I have a maximum resolution of 800x600, which is annoying for me to use. So I open up everything full screen and have the "windows key" on one side and the "menu key" on the other to move from virtual desktop to virtual desktop. I have like 16 virtual desktops setup.

On my desktop I have a bunch of xterms open and move from one to the other with alt-tab bindings. You know a lot like you had in Win95. Alt-tab.. select from list, enter and now I am using another window.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

Oh well I guess i'll just have to live with it 😉 Thanks for your time 🙂