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#1 2008-04-05 01:49:03

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Hey guys, is there an easy way to get 1920x1200 resolution from the command line?

I have no problems getting that in X, but at boot time, all the text on the screen is pretty big.  I've searched the forums and the wiki, but can't seem to find a solution.  I've also already tried putting vga=796, vga=798, and vga=799 in my menu.lst file, but each of them only gives an error and a short menu of possible modes to pick from (and a scan option) to continue booting.

Right now I'm using vga=794 and that works, but the text is a bit large, as stated above.  I spend quite a bit of time in command line, so smaller text would be better.

Thanks for any help.


oz

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#2 2008-04-05 02:39:07

luciferin
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Registered: 2007-05-10
Posts: 144

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Simply put there is no easy way of doing it.  The Kernel/framebuffer does not support high resolutions (over 1024x768).  There are hacks for Intel cards to acchieve these resolutions though, ATI & nVidia are not able to though (to the best of my knowledge, at least).

What is your graphics card/driver?

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#3 2008-04-05 02:53:35

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Thanks for the reply, luciferin.

After all my searching of the web, I was beginning to think just that.  My card is nvidia 6600 GT, using the official nvidia drivers.  I was hoping to get at least 1600x1200, hence the vga values posted above.

Thanks again.


oz

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#4 2008-04-05 03:04:20

luciferin
Member
Registered: 2007-05-10
Posts: 144

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

I really don't think you're going to be able to get it working then, unfortuantely.  There are nVidia framebuffer drivers but they are incompatible with the X drivers (so it's either FB or X).  You can look into UvesaFB here to see if it supports any higher resolutions on your card, but as far as I know only intel cards can manage them.

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#5 2008-04-05 03:40:58

hpestilence
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Registered: 2005-06-20
Posts: 67

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

You should be able to get a 1600x1200 screen with uvesafb, it's the resolution I was using with fbsplash and my card is a 6600gt using the official nvidia drivers.


EDIT: Also with uvesafb you can check supported resolutions with

cat /sys/bus/platform/drivers/uvesafb/uvesafb.0/vbe_modes

Last edited by hpestilence (2008-04-05 03:45:53)

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#6 2008-04-05 13:49:45

schivmeister
Developer/TU
From: Singapore
Registered: 2007-05-17
Posts: 971
Website

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

# vbetest

Add 512 to the resolution you prefer and that would be your vga number. Don't know whether any of the framebuffer/vga drivers can handle that high, though. 866 (1280x800 8:8:8) works fine here, and I can see [348] 1920x1440 (8:8:8) (348 + 512 = 860) but my monitor is incapable.

Take note, the screen during GRUB is only capable to a max of 1024x768 (as Suse showed us initially with some hack). As for the rest, we're using 640x480. After kernel comes up though, it's all vga/framebuffer dependent.

Last edited by schivmeister (2008-04-05 13:54:44)


I need real, proper pen and paper for this.

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#7 2008-04-05 16:50:02

ozar
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From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Thanks for the replies, guys.

The uvesafb option looked to be an easy solution, but it turned out not to be so easy.  It is working, but not without its own problems.  Looks like from this thread that lots of others are having (or have had) problems with it, too:   

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=43373

I'll play with it a bit more to see if it's a workable solution for me.

Thanks again.


oz

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#8 2008-04-05 19:08:16

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Guys, I've got this working pretty well now, but it's terribly ugly at boot time watching all that huge text fly by until uvesafb actually kicks in.  I'm guessing from what schivmeister said that there's no way to stop that, correct?

Thanks bunches to each of you for your help.


oz

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#9 2008-04-05 19:19:37

luciferin
Member
Registered: 2007-05-10
Posts: 144

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Try adding the command "quiet" to your grub kernel line so it looks something like this:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdc1 ro quiet splash

Last edited by luciferin (2008-04-05 19:20:08)

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#10 2008-04-05 20:18:54

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Thanks a bunch, luciferin, but but I do want to continue to see the boot messages, but just in smaller text.  Looks like it can't be done all that easily, at least at the current time.  Maybe things will change soon with all the widescreen monitors being sold these days.

Thanks again to each of you for your suggestions.


oz

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#11 2008-04-05 21:36:17

Ink-Jet
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From: London
Registered: 2008-03-27
Posts: 64
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Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

So how do you work out the number to put after the vga= statement on the kernel line?

I'm curious as to whether my 1400x900 resolution would be supported.

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#12 2008-04-05 23:12:53

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

I've played around with the Terminus fonts some and that gives me a smaller font but they are a bit fuzzy, and they don't kick in until after most of the boot process has completed, too.  I might still go with them since they aren't so bold and are smaller.


Ink-Jet wrote:

So how do you work out the number to put after the vga= statement on the kernel line?

I'm curious as to whether my 1400x900 resolution would be supported.

You don't use a vga statement, Ink-Jet.  Read the wiki page posted above and follow those instructions.  It's really a pretty simple process to get it working once you understand what you are doing.  Basically, you install the v86d package, add v86d to your hooks in  your mkinitcpio.conf file, run the mkinitcpio -g /boot/kernel26.img command, remove the vga=xxx from your menu.lst file, and edit the /etc/modprobe.d/uvesafb to the correct resolution for your monitor.

Hope it works out for you.


oz

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#13 2008-04-06 05:47:26

schivmeister
Developer/TU
From: Singapore
Registered: 2007-05-17
Posts: 971
Website

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

err..you can still use just a vga statement. unless it doesn't work with stock vesa like in ozar's case (i'm presuming so), there is no need to do anything more. already mentioned above, vbetest (as root) + 512. If there is [357] 1440x900 (8:8:8), that would be (357 + 512) 869. uvesafb is just better, you can specify refresh rates and rendering options among other things. Btw, adding quiet hides the initial hardware messages so that isn't something bad.


I need real, proper pen and paper for this.

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#14 2008-04-06 11:44:56

Ink-Jet
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From: London
Registered: 2008-03-27
Posts: 64
Website

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Thanks guys, schivmeister's way worked perfectly, and it looks a lot better now -- a lot smaller, lol.

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#15 2008-04-06 14:54:18

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

I really do like the idea behind the uvesafb option, but it's not giving me the results I'm looking for, just yet.  After playing around with different options since Friday night, I'm going to stick with using vga=838 in my menu.lst file because it gives me 1600x1200 resolution, and it works well enough for now, or at least until uvesafb improves a bit more.

Thanks to each of you for your help.


oz

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#16 2008-08-26 05:47:58

RagingDragon
Member
Registered: 2008-07-27
Posts: 24

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

If anyone is curious the Linux VGA numbers for resolutions upto 1600x1200 are listed here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBE#Linux_ … de_numbers

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#17 2008-08-26 09:30:38

11010010110
Member
Registered: 2008-01-14
Posts: 284

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

There is a selection of fonts in the kernel that includes small and thin ones

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#18 2008-08-26 16:09:33

dsr
Member
Registered: 2008-05-31
Posts: 187

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

ozar, do you need to do your CLI work from a virtual console? My monitor works best with 1280x800 resolution, which I can only achieve with X11, so I use a full screen gnome-terminal (running GNU screen) inside ratpoison. (xterm, urxvt, et al. work fine too, but gnome-terminal gave me anti-aliasing out of the box...) Not only are X terminal emulators more configurable than the virtual console, but they also let you run X apps at the same time. smile

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#19 2008-08-26 22:31:05

Profjim
Member
From: NYC
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 658

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

For future reference, I had a hard time tracking down the vga codes for my funny-sized monitor (1366x768) until I stumbled upon the command
   sudo hwinfo --framebuffer
hwinfo is in aur, you can install it just for this one-time use then delete it. It gave me a list of all the vga codes I might use for my framebuffer.

Not sure if the framebuffer driver needs to be loaded for this to work; probably it does.

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#20 2008-10-29 00:44:25

bubaak
Member
From: Brno, Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-10-29
Posts: 7

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

Profjim wrote:

For future reference, I had a hard time tracking down the vga codes for my funny-sized monitor (1366x768) until I stumbled upon the command
   sudo hwinfo --framebuffer
hwinfo is in aur, you can install it just for this one-time use then delete it. It gave me a list of all the vga codes I might use for my framebuffer.

Not sure if the framebuffer driver needs to be loaded for this to work; probably it does.

thanks for the tip

I ran the command and got the following for my laptop:

  Mode 0x0360: 1280x800 (+1280), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0361: 1280x800 (+2560), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0362: 1280x800 (+5120), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+832), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits

I have passed the mode as vga kernel parameter in grub conf and it worked like a charm. So now i have 1280x800 on my laptop and 1680x1050 on my desktop, nice and simple.

Edit: well not so nice and simple on my work computer with radeon 9200 and open source drivers.

Last edited by bubaak (2008-10-29 21:56:46)


ARCH64 | i3
I laugh in the face of kernel errors. -haxit

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#21 2008-11-15 00:50:47

cwjiof
Member
From: Taichung, TW
Registered: 2008-01-27
Posts: 131

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

The vbetest command is from the lrmi package in EXTRA. And I want to know which one is the better, vbetest or hwinfo?

Last edited by cwjiof (2008-11-15 00:51:32)

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#22 2008-11-16 11:35:31

dmz
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2008-08-27
Posts: 881
Website

Re: 1920x1200 resolution in command line?

I still can't get 1680x1050 in framebuffer. wbetest doesn't show me that resolution. hmm

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