From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Apr 8 21:37:51 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C15E0B07F25 for ; Fri, 8 Apr 2016 21:37:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from outgoing.tristatelogic.com (segfault.tristatelogic.com [69.62.255.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A9E8F19C8 for ; Fri, 8 Apr 2016 21:37:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from segfault-nmh-helo.tristatelogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B5F9D3ADFA for ; Fri, 8 Apr 2016 14:37:49 -0700 (PDT) From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Fonts for vt(4) driver? In-Reply-To: <55065.1460139818@server1.tristatelogic.com> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 14:37:49 -0700 Message-ID: <55924.1460151469@server1.tristatelogic.com> X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 21:37:51 -0000 I googled around a bit more and found some helpful information on this topic: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/49601/ Adding the line: hw.vga.textmode=1 to my /boot/loader.conf file did indeed fix the problem that I asked about, however the discussion at the above thread raised some new questions in my mind. Specifically, as noted in the above cited thread, one author noted, correctly, that if one puts the line "hw.vga.textmode=1" into the loader.conf file, then the console fonts you get on boot up look very normal, e.g. to people like me who are accustomed to what the console fonts looked like in older FreeBSD releases. However if you then start up X, and then exit X, the fonts which you then see on the console are still very normal looking, but they are then quite a bit smaller (pointsize wise) than before. Some people, e.g. one of the people who posted to the above cited thread, didn't like this. He felt that the point size of the font that he saw on the console after exiting X was too small for his pleasure. I myself have the exact opposite opinion. I would like to have the point size of my console font be small, even _before_ I start and then exit X. How can I accomplish this? I tried to figure out the answer to this question on my own, but failed. Based on various comments in various threads, I got the impression that perhaps all I needed to do was to add the following line to my loader.conf file: radeonkms_load="YES" (Yes, the system in question contains an AMD APU, which in turn contains a Radeon GPU.) Anyway, I added that line to the top of my loader.conf file and then rebooted. The result was perfectly awful. The screen (an ASUS 1920x1080 24 inch monitor) seemed to have been put into 1920x1080 graphics mode, however the whole screen was just filled with random pixels of random colors. (Ultimatedly I had to boot FreeBSD off of a USB stick so that I could edit loader.conf and remove the troublesome radeonkms_load="YES" line, just to get the system in question back to a usaable state.) So anyway, three questions: 1) What did I do wrong? Why did adding radeonkms_load="YES" to the loader.conf file result in a completely unusable system? 2) Is it possible to have freeBSD boot up and use nice small pointsize fonts immediately (on a modern 1920x1080 monitor, and with Radeon graphics hardware)? 3) If so, how would one do this?