From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Fri Oct 14 17:24:54 2005
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3175F16A41F
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Fri, 14 Oct 2005 17:24:54 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from jnevans@gmail.com)
Received: from qproxy.gmail.com (qproxy.gmail.com [72.14.204.206])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5157E43D4C
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Fri, 14 Oct 2005 17:24:53 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from jnevans@gmail.com)
Received: by qproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id a39so329652qbd
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:24:52 -0700 (PDT)
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com;
	h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type;
	b=eRyOka8nTTxPQA7JKnL7ZETh2jwcQ7TntXGv0yEHLSAh9Vd5kVb9aBMH3A19T+mr4KyCJtItEXkoQsNSXwXFrgt5USxQppxchGKbjdFyQlB1cxmwHC1UD6t5dsWntqGpyZDPMbvxH61MvnOKQkBcfzVicUaEN8ZHs7BbkBMlCNA=
Received: by 10.65.122.10 with SMTP id z10mr880821qbm;
	Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:24:50 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.65.114.20 with HTTP; Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:24:46 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <2cbc9d820510141024i80098bdpee425dd4d0eb19b6@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:24:46 -0700
From: Jared Evans <jnevans@gmail.com>
To: Ask FreeBSD <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline
X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5
Subject: How to get a high resolution console for FreeBSD inside a VMWare
	image?
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 17:24:54 -0000

I know that this isn't exactly a standard configuration (VMWare as opposed
to native installation) for FreeBSD so most of the answers I found online
weren't really applicable for me.

I simply wanted a high resolution FreeBSD console PTYs running under VMWare=
.
It was surprisingly more complex than I expected:

When attempting to change screen resolution for a console in FreeBSD runnin=
g
under VMWare, I ran across this error message:

> vidcontrol -g 100x37 VESA_800x600

vidcontrol: cannot set videomode inappropriate ioctl for device

It seemed to me that VMWare was unable to init VESA correctly in console bu=
t
strangely enough Xorg is capable of changing to a higher resolution without
any problems.

After some googling:

VESA driver in current source tree checks the NONVGA flag of VESA
information block when loading. If this flag is set it will refuse to
initialize. Most VESA adapters do not set this flag, but the virtual displa=
y
adapter in VMWare does.

in src/sys/i386/isa/vesa.c, there is a check for the flag V_NONVGA in line
655. If you comment it out, flag check will be bypassed. After all, if Xorg
can use higher resolution, there shouldn't be a problem using VESA on the
console!

Re-compiling my kernel to include the below as suggested by several more we=
b
searches:

options VESA
options SC_PIXEL_MODE
options VGA_WIDTH90

rebooting then:

> vidcontrol -g 100x37 VESA_800x600

vidcontrol: operation not supported by device

Any more tips for me?