Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sat, 12 May 2001 19:31:43 -0400
From:      Skip <vze2j9fk@verizon.net>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Need VESA video help
Message-ID:  <200105122350.XAA30817178@smtp4ve.mailsrvcs.net>
In-Reply-To: <006a01c0db0e$ac574740$2813933f@cat>; from pan@syix.com on Sat, May 12, 2001 at 11:09:23AM -0700
References:  <200105121620.QAA19931033@smtp7ve.mailsrvcs.net> <006a01c0db0e$ac574740$2813933f@cat>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
pan wrote:
> 
> From: "Skip" <vze2j9fk@verizon.net>
> 
> > I installed 4.2-RELEASE a few days ago and managed to get everything
> > working, except changing to a decent video mode.  I built a kernel with
> > option VESA.  But whenever I try to change to any VESA mode, I get
> > 'Operation not supported by device.'
> > 
> > I can change to many other modes but none of the VESA_132x modes.  I
> > have the 3 fonts loaded in rc.conf, and have also loaded them from the
> > command line.
> > 
> 
> Just went through that -- the video chip was manufactured with a cutdown
> VESA bios extension -- max supported mode in text was 80x25. In
> particular it was an ATI rage pro turbo based 8mB agp card.
> 
> Solution was to rip the agp card out - dig out an ancient virge S3
> plain vanilla vga card, insert and then vidcontrol got me everything
> I asked for.
> 
> I guess text mode users are supposed to wither away if they don't
> follow the yellow brick xwindows road.

How does Linux do it then?  The linux framebuffer console makes easy
work of it.  A dozen or so kernel options and 'vga=792' in lilo.conf and
it boots into this beautiful resolution I'm used to.  And from
everything I've read, it uses VESA modes to do it.

I don't have any ancient cards to dig out, so if this one won't work I'm
afraid FreeBSD has to go :(

I used to use XWindows under Linux just to have a decent looking
terminal but then the framebuffer console came along.  I don't think I
want to go back to X.

Asise from the bad video mode, FreeBSD seems awsome though.
Thanks for your response.
-- 
Skip

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200105122350.XAA30817178>