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#1 2006-09-14 19:17:48

toxic
Member
Registered: 2006-06-05
Posts: 117

Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

I've googled this matter to death. The fact is that I have an odd widescreen which supports 1280x768 resolution.

The basic problem is that grub seems to allow to set VGA modes in the bootline, which in itself is good, but the only 'official' values listed concern regular screens (ie 1024x768).

Currently I'm using 1024x768 as it's the second best thing (It's quite impractical to have any smaller resolution than that, the font tend to grow almost larger than my screen).


In the grub boot line I've tried to set
video=<drivers>:<xres>x<yres>[-bpp]@refresh_rate
I was never sure what driver to set, so I tried with fglrx as it's my ati radeon driver (probably not the type of driver expected, but hey, got to try something). So this gave no success.

On to trying VGA modes. I've found a wide variety of values to set of from different forums, neither seemed to work or where just a wrong resolution.
vga=792 - which yielded 1024x768 at some color-depth
vga=354 / 357 of from some gentoo forum, which did not work at all
vga=0x316 & 364, which was said to be for widescreens of type 1200x800, which did not work either

Currently I'm using vga=0x317, which is the best I've found so far. But really, why couldn't  just the developers of grub make a giant list which lists all modes ?

I know there are possible bootsplash scripts out there, like gensplash, usplash, bootsplash and whatever. I'm not sure if they managed to change the framebuffer into the correct mode for my screen, but it would seem a little awkward to install them only for that purpose.


Thanks for your time

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#2 2006-09-15 05:27:41

pauldonnelly
Member
Registered: 2006-06-19
Posts: 776

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

I had a lot of trouble trying to get a 1280x800 framebuffer. Simply appending vga=0x### didn't do anything, and neither my attempts to use the vesafb driver rather than whatever it was I was using before. What finally worked was appending "vga=0x360 video=vesafb:mtrr,1280x800-16@72" to my kernel line in menu.lst. Maybe something similar could work for you. I'm not sure the number you put after vga= is important, although you need something there. I think the other stuff is the critical stuff.

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#3 2006-09-15 09:34:27

patroclo7
Member
From: Bassano del Grappa, ITALY
Registered: 2006-01-11
Posts: 915

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

Well, if you use vesafb (this happens is you use arch binary kernels, in any flavour), then you can use two kinds of parameters with different kernels:
1) the vga parameter with arch standard kernel26 and any other binary kernel not including vesafb-tng patch:
2) the xXy-z@k parameter above with bbeyond kernel, which includes the vesafb-tng patch.
You are never supposed to use both the parameters (the unrelevant one is just ignored).

However, in my past experience, the only possibility to support a wide screen framebuffer is to use the hardware specific framebuffer driver. You need to configure and compile your own kernel.  Each driver has its own options (and the kernel docs are very lacking on this issue): in most cases (but not always, e.g. intelfb for LCD displays) they accept parameters in format 2 (something like video=radeonfb:<parameter>), but - when you pass a simple 'video=radeonfb' without any other parametrer, they tend to read the resolution directly from the bios and this may work just fine (as with intelfb on my 1280x800 i915).


Mortuus in anima, curam gero cutis

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#4 2006-09-15 18:53:44

toxic
Member
Registered: 2006-06-05
Posts: 117

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

patroclo7:
Sounds a bit tricky. I was never sure about the beyond kernel actually. Is there any reason to not install the beyond kernel, I mean, may it conflict with any packages etc ?


pauldonnelly
I will give that a try, maybe I get lucky, maybe I don't. Either way it's definately worth a try.
Ok, after giving the various combinations a couple of tries I can conclude that it did not work. I guess looking at the beyond kernel comes as the next natural step.

Thanks both for your  input.

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#5 2007-06-29 15:14:14

VuDu
Member
Registered: 2007-05-11
Posts: 95

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

I'm also trying to achieve this.
I have a nvidia card and and LCD screen with 1280x800 native resolution.
Is it really necessary to compile our own kernel? Googling points that way sad but all answers point to Gentoo and "they" compile everything! big_smile
I'm still using 1024x768, but recently I used the GParted LiveCD and it surprised me when I saw the framebuffer on the screen's native resolution.
I noticed on the boot screen a line with "udev loading module nvidiafb".
If it's loading a module, it should not need to be "patched" in the kernel, right?

Last edited by VuDu (2007-06-29 15:16:20)

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#6 2007-06-29 15:21:34

dtw
Forum Fellow
From: UK
Registered: 2004-08-03
Posts: 4,439
Website

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

Well, you may not need to patch the kernel to enable the module, but you might need to rebuild it.  I think, by default, only one fb driver can be enabled, so for stock kernels that is the generic vesafb.  If want to enable the nvidia one, for example, you'll need to rebuild the kernel.

.Edit.

I lie.  Nvidia is already built into the kernel as a module...so in theory you just need to enable it...

Last edited by dtw (2007-06-29 15:23:40)

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#7 2007-06-29 15:23:46

VuDu
Member
Registered: 2007-05-11
Posts: 95

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

Thanks for the lightning-fast reply.
Alright, but how will it deal with future kernel updates?
And if so... how can I rebuild it, so that it uses the nvidiafb instead of vesafb?

Last edited by VuDu (2007-06-29 15:24:06)

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#8 2007-06-29 15:36:28

kth5
Member
Registered: 2004-04-29
Posts: 657
Website

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

dtw wrote:

Well, you may not need to patch the kernel to enable the module, but you might need to rebuild it.  I think, by default, only one fb driver can be enabled, so for stock kernels that is the generic vesafb.  If want to enable the nvidia one, for example, you'll need to rebuild the kernel.

.Edit.

I lie.  Nvidia is already built into the kernel as a module...so in theory you just need to enable it...

Yes that is true but you end up not being able to start X with the comercial drivers anymore. xf86-video-nv might not necessarily be what you want. smile


I recognize that while theory and practice are, in theory, the same, they are, in practice, different. -Mark Mitchell

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#9 2007-06-29 15:43:50

VuDu
Member
Registered: 2007-05-11
Posts: 95

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

Yes, I'm using compiz-fusion with nvidia's drivers... and I'd like to keep using it smile plus the cool framebuffer resolution smile

Last edited by VuDu (2007-06-29 15:45:10)

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#10 2008-11-29 03:12:02

hzqtc
Member
From: Hangzhou, China
Registered: 2008-01-22
Posts: 22

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

Hi, guys. I think I have a method to this road. Using the following:
# pacman -S lrmi
# vbetest
This will list all the framebuffer mode supported. And the number listed plus 512 will be used as vga=? parament in menu.lst
It depends on your video card and driver. I have nVidia card and this works.

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#11 2008-11-29 04:10:21

verve
Member
Registered: 2008-09-08
Posts: 30

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

whats the setting for 1360x768

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#12 2008-11-29 12:02:04

VuDu
Member
Registered: 2007-05-11
Posts: 95

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

hzqtc wrote:

Hi, guys. I think I have a method to this road. Using the following:
# pacman -S lrmi
# vbetest
This will list all the framebuffer mode supported. And the number listed plus 512 will be used as vga=? parament in menu.lst
It depends on your video card and driver. I have nVidia card and this works.

# vbetest 
VBE Version 3.0
NVIDIA
[256] 640x400 (256 color palette)
[257] 640x480 (256 color palette)
[259] 800x600 (256 color palette)
[261] 1024x768 (256 color palette)
[270] 320x200 (5:6:5)
[271] 320x200 (8:8:8)
[273] 640x480 (5:6:5)
[274] 640x480 (8:8:8)
[276] 800x600 (5:6:5)
[277] 800x600 (8:8:8)
[279] 1024x768 (5:6:5)
[280] 1024x768 (8:8:8)
[304] 320x200 (256 color palette)
[305] 320x400 (256 color palette)
[306] 320x400 (5:6:5)
[307] 320x400 (8:8:8)
[308] 320x240 (256 color palette)
[309] 320x240 (5:6:5)
[310] 320x240 (8:8:8)
[317] 640x400 (5:6:5)
[318] 640x400 (8:8:8)
Type a mode number, or 'q' to quit -

That doesn't seem to work... I have a 1280x800 laptop with a nvidia 6200.

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#13 2008-12-29 16:05:46

Eldanen
Member
Registered: 2006-12-13
Posts: 13

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

VuDu wrote:

I'm also trying to achieve this.
I have a nvidia card and and LCD screen with 1280x800 native resolution.
Is it really necessary to compile our own kernel? Googling points that way sad but all answers point to Gentoo and "they" compile everything! big_smile
I'm still using 1024x768, but recently I used the GParted LiveCD and it surprised me when I saw the framebuffer on the screen's native resolution.
I noticed on the boot screen a line with "udev loading module nvidiafb".
If it's loading a module, it should not need to be "patched" in the kernel, right?

I use Gentoo and I had a similar situation.  Apparently, my video bios, according to hwinfo, does not support a 1440x900 framebuffer.  I popped in the gparted livecd, and lo and behold, I have a framebuffer that looks as if it was sent from heaven: perfectly proportioned, size and all!  So I'm wondering how they do that.  I've tried compiling in the nvidiafb module and passing the proper commands from grub, but that doesn't seem to work.  Any further hints on this?

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#14 2008-12-29 16:21:27

amranu
Member
Registered: 2008-09-25
Posts: 94

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

vga=865 appended to the kernel line gives a 1280x800 framebuffer

865 = 0x361

Last edited by amranu (2008-12-29 16:21:59)

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#15 2010-07-08 06:51:19

brova
Member
Registered: 2010-03-01
Posts: 17

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

amranu wrote:

vga=865 appended to the kernel line gives a 1280x800 framebuffer

865 = 0x361

soo i dont understand where does the 0x361 come into play?

Last edited by brova (2010-07-08 06:52:15)

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#16 2010-07-08 07:08:30

tomk
Forum Fellow
From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: Booting into widescreen framebuffer (grub)

865 in decimal = 361 in hexadecimal.

Apart from that - this thread is old.

Closed.

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