Arch Linux

Aprz

Member

From: Newark

Registered: 2008-05-28

Posts: 277

GRUB menu.lst vga=xxx[/Solved]

After messing around for a little while longer I found that some resolutions work and some simply don't which I am not concern about so this post is done.

In the Wiki Beginner Guide for installing Archlinux, in the notes of menu.lst itself, and from what I could see on several sites that I Googled,  it mentions editing GRUB's menu.lst for framebuffer by adding "vga=xxx" on the kernel line and it gave an example of vga=773 for 1024x768. I added it to the lines like this:

This is all in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

#(0) Arch Linux
title     Arch Linux (Main)
root    (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda1 vga=773 ro

And it didn't work. It gave me an error message after reboot which was:

You passed an undefined mode number.
Press <RETURN> to see video modes available, <SPACE> to continue or wait 30 secs

Video adapter: VESA VGA
Mode: COLSxROWS:
0 0F00 80x25
1 0F01 80x50
2 0F02 80x43
3 0F03 80x28
4 0F04 80x30 
5 0F05 80x34
6 0F06 80x60

Enter mode number or 'scan':_

I messed around with it and eventually found that the letters/numbers it provided in the error message worked so it looks something like this:

#(0) Arch Linux
title     Arch Linux (Main)
root    (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda1 vga=0F05 ro

I am happy it works (just for the sake of working, I don't think I needed it), but I am curious why it didn't work the way the multiple of guides I read said the way I was suppose to do it.

Thank you very much in advance.

Last edited by Aprz (2008-06-08 08:13:48)

bender02

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 1,328

Re: GRUB menu.lst vga=xxx[/Solved]

Maybe you wanted to put 773 in menu.lst, not 733.

Aprz

Member

From: Newark

Registered: 2008-05-28

Posts: 277

Re: GRUB menu.lst vga=xxx[/Solved]

Sorry, that was a typo on the forums and not in menu.lst. I didn't copy and paste this, I had to look on my other computer which has Archlinux and freely type it. I tried this multiple times with different numbers that were provided in the notes of menu.lst so I doubt it was a typo. Below is the list that is in the menu of menu.lst.

#  FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#          | 640x480    800x600    1024x768   1280x1024
#      ----+--------------------------------------------
#      256 | 0x301=769  0x303=771  0x305=773   0x307=775
#      32K | 0x310=784  0x313=787  0x316=790   0x319=793
#      64K | 0x311=785  0x314=788  0x317=791   0x31A=794
#      16M | 0x312=786  0x315=789  0x318=792   0x31B=795
#     +-------------------------------------------------+

I pulled that off of http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB.

So sorry for the typo on here. I will fix it. Any other ideas?

Edit: Typo fixed.

Edit: Well, I tried several more times with different numbers and some work and some don't so I am guessing it has to do with some not working with certain resolution on my part so I guess that's it. Thanks all.

Last edited by Aprz (2008-06-08 08:09:50)

ralvy

Member

From: Santa Monica, California

Registered: 2004-12-06

Posts: 275

Re: GRUB menu.lst vga=xxx[/Solved]

I have the same problem, after years of success with Arch. I now just remove of the vga= switch all together.

ralvy

Member

From: Santa Monica, California

Registered: 2004-12-06

Posts: 275

Re: GRUB menu.lst vga=xxx[/Solved]

Found a solution. Use

edd=off

as a kernel parameter. After that's done, I can use vga parameters to my heart's content.