terminal screen size

guild · 01-25-2005, 11:13 PM

Hello folks;

I just installed Arch linux and have found that I spend most of my time in runlevel 3. However the text console does not fill my entire screen. In other words when I boot into runlevel 3 and get the prompt and log in - the functional area of the screen is only about 1/2 of the total screen area. Surely there is a variable somewhere that will set the screen size to a larger size.

Note - this is not an X problem. This is only when working in tty1 or one of the other consoles.

I'm not sure if the proper term is console or terminal - but it is whatever you get when you boot into runlevel 3.

Thanks in advance for any help !!!!

-David

guild · 01-26-2005, 11:50 AM

I found the solution on IRC.

To fix the screensize when booting into runlevel 3 - add the following to menu.lst if you are using grub:

vga=0x318

This should be added to the line with the boot options.

The table below has the framebuffer resolution settings:

Code:

#  FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
#     +----------------------------------------+
#          | 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024
#      ----+-----------------------------------
#      256 |   0x301   0x303    0x305     0x307
#      32K |   0x310   0x313    0x316     0x319
#      64K |   0x311   0x314    0x317     0x31A
#      16M |   0x312   0x315    0x318     0x31B
#     +----------------------------------------+

My menu.lst file looks like this:

Code:

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message

title Arch 
    root (hd0,2)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3 ro vga=0x318

title Suse
    kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x314 splash=silent desktop resume=/dev/hda1 showopts
    initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd
    
title Failsafe
    kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0  3
    initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd

The line reading " kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3 ro vga=0x318" is the key for changing the screen size.