From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Oct 15 02:42:19 2005 Return-Path: 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 49AFC16A41F for ; Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:42:19 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nikolas.britton@gmail.com) Received: from wproxy.gmail.com (wproxy.gmail.com [64.233.184.207]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CE2DD43D48 for ; Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:42:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nikolas.britton@gmail.com) Received: by wproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id i2so341216wra for ; Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:42:18 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=STDWnnCq4SOutGOX1lkasL9cAu1E2bbRKuk+UOep8Im0QSte8/7R7AP1ZCqtoMQrlpeYXCR3a18qn4u0Coe7cvxKNlAVWJueHk8o0fd+6DWQsHgBXAiIchSSQvzyufCjwawVpjwTZ6sb9WEsBPQLkMQr5pGUn4xAtvH2EOdz3W8= Received: by 10.54.160.20 with SMTP id i20mr1258392wre; Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:42:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.54.124.11 with HTTP; Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:42:18 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 21:42:18 -0500 From: Nikolas Britton To: Jared Evans In-Reply-To: <2cbc9d820510141024i80098bdpee425dd4d0eb19b6@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <2cbc9d820510141024i80098bdpee425dd4d0eb19b6@mail.gmail.com> Cc: Ask FreeBSD Subject: Re: 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 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:42:19 -0000 On 10/14/05, Jared Evans wrote: > I know that this isn't exactly a standard configuration (VMWare as oppose= d > 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 VMWa= re. > It was surprisingly more complex than I expected: > > When attempting to change screen resolution for a console in FreeBSD runn= ing > 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 = but > strangely enough Xorg is capable of changing to a higher resolution witho= ut > 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 disp= lay > adapter in VMWare does. > > in src/sys/i386/isa/vesa.c, there is a check for the flag V_NONVGA in lin= e > 655. If you comment it out, flag check will be bypassed. After all, if Xo= rg > 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 = web > 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? You computer (VMware) doesn't have a "proper" VESA BIOS and that is why 800x600 raster text mode won't work etc. FreeBSD 6 has this all worked just put 'allscreens_flags=3D"MODE_279"' in rc.conf for 1024x768... you can get a list of other modes supported by typing in vidcontrol -i MODE (I think, can never remember :-)). if you want this for FreeBSD 5.x then your going to have to manually patch your system, but I have a simple script that will do it for you. somewhere around here...... check for patch errors after you run the script. -------------------------------------------------- cd /tmp rm current-vesa_patch.tar.gz fetch http://www.nbritton.org/uploads/current-vesa_patch.tar.gz rm -r current-vesa_patch tar -zxf current-vesa_patch.tar.gz cd /usr/src/sys/dev/syscons patch