Arch Linux

DKEBeck

Member

Registered: 2022-08-15

Posts: 18

screen resolution at initial startup is too low after firmware update

After recently updating the firmware on my Intel NUC 13, the screen resolution at initial startup is now very low (font is huge, only about 10 lines fit on the screen at a time). Once it gets to the display manager lightdm, all is better. During shutdown, all is fine as well.  It's only at startup. I'm using systemd-boot. Any ideas where I can change this back? It's not a big deal at all - even at normal resolution the lines fly by way too fast for me to read them. I'm just curious what may have happened and how to fix it.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,300

Re: screen resolution at initial startup is too low after firmware update

Did CSM get (re-)activated with the UEFI update? For higher res during early boot you generally want that disabled so modern EFI boot modes can be used. Alternatively/additionally though that should get guaranteed by the kms hook already, add i915 to your MODULES= line in mkinitcpio and regenerate your initramfs.

DKEBeck

Member

Registered: 2022-08-15

Posts: 18

Re: screen resolution at initial startup is too low after firmware update

At some point between NUC 8 and NUC 13, CSM was permanently disabled in firmware.  I just check to verify, and that option remains grayed out and unselectable. I added i915 to MODULES in mkinitcpio and that did change the resolution to the "normal" resolution. However, that change happens only after selecting Arch Linux on the screen providing the initial set of boot options (Arch, Arch fallback, firmware). Before the firmware update, that selection menu was also the "normal" resolution, but now it's presented to me at this newer much lower resolution. I'll dig around more in the new firmware and check some NUC-specific forums.