From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 2 13:45:53 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 92A1516A417 for ; Thu, 2 Aug 2007 13:45:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nvass@teledomenet.gr) Received: from smtp.teledomenet.gr (smtp.teledomenet.gr [213.142.128.2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E69413C461 for ; Thu, 2 Aug 2007 13:45:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nvass@teledomenet.gr) Received: from iris (unknown [192.168.1.71]) by smtp.teledomenet.gr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 263E0143863; Thu, 2 Aug 2007 16:45:52 +0300 (EEST) From: Nikos Vassiliadis To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 16:46:49 +0300 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <20070802122029.GA17937@muc.de> In-Reply-To: <20070802122029.GA17937@muc.de> X-NCC-RegID: gr.telehouse MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200708021646.49965.nvass@teledomenet.gr> Cc: Alan Mackenzie , questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 6.2. Can I get 128x48 (or similar) console screens? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:45:53 -0000 On Thursday 02 August 2007 15:20, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > Hi, FreeBSD! > > I'm a long time GNU/Linux user, and I'm considering changing over to > FreeBSD. Why? To escape the upgrade tread-mill. Every time a new > Debian release comes out, I say "Oh no, not again!", scarcely looking > forward to the weeks of pain getting it to work properly. You may have the very same problems using FreeBSD. > I'm not sure > I prefer the alternative, something like Ubuntu or PCLinux, where you > just shut your eyes, lie back and think of South Africa, not knowing > quite what's getting installed on your PC. That's not a very nice comment to do. Please, keep your feelings about continents/countries/Linux distributions out of here. > And finding the usable > nuggets of information in the vast swathes of Linux documentation > scattered diffusely over the Internet isn't fun either. That's a problem you won't have with FreeBSD. > > Anyway, back to the point! I do most of my work in Linux on virtual > console screens, which are set up at 128x48 characters courtesy of the > "framebuffer" thing in the Linux kernel. Previously, I had used > SVGATextMode, which did much the same. I just don't much like GUIs, > since they are cluttered up with toolbars, dialog boxes, scrollbars, > wine bars, start bars, crowbars, ...., and tend to steal key sequences > which I want to belong to applications. There are dozens of window managers you can choose from. Not all of them have bells and whistles. You could try ion wm, which is a very minimal window manager. > I haven't found any like facility in 6.2, so far: I downloaded the > documentation last night (the CD image 6.2-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso) and > had a general browse through it (the English version). It's nicely > written, but I didn't find what I was looking for. Then I grepped > through it with > > find . -name "*.txt" | xargs grep '[1-9][0-9]*x[1-9][0-9]*' > > without finding anything helpful. 80x60 isn't enough! > > Is it possible I've missed something relevant? Or is there some sort of > add-on utility which would give me consoles with (approximately) 128x48? You'll probably have to build the kernel yourself. Read vidcontrol manual page. It boils down to this: You have to add VESA support and raster text mode support to your kernel. Read this: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=366057 Keep in mind that the above guide, recommends upgrading. You don't have to upgrade, just build your kernel with what is needed. HTH, Nikos