my console screen size is 'shrunken'. the borders of the console are a few inches in from the monitor, but when i load X the whole screen is taken up like it should be. it was like this from installation onwards, so i can't imagine i configured anything to make it this way; as soon as i plopped in install disc and turned on comp i was greeted with this 'mini screen'. my monitor goes thru a serial port(i think), it has an adapter that goes from the regular monitor plug to a serial plug that looks like this on the end that plugs into back of comp:

D
the dots are supposed to be pins, all of that is enclosed in a D shaped bracket that would be facing in the direction of a normal D in above pic. is this type of plug the reason for my shrunke screen? what should i do to fix?

No, that type of plug is what's known as "DVI" and is a super high-quality monitor connector, which has a digital signal. However, if you are going thru an adpater then you are still using an analog monitor. But it is not the cause for your "mini-screen." Your screen is like it is because when you are in console mode your display is un-initialized. It is using the most basic level of communication to the monitor/display adapter. If anyone can explain this better feel free.

Are you using a laptop? My Dell does that and you have to hit Fn-F7

no laptop, but i'll go try Fn-F7

guru << but how come i've never seen this b4? i've been running linux for bout a year, this is prolly my 6th installatoin, never had this happen b4, and i've never used that adapter so figured that was it..

anyone else have any ideas?

heh, no Fn key on regular keyboard i forgot this is really annoying me.. any ideas?

have you tried to do a xf85config and redoing it to see if that will fix your monitor issue?

well in X all is fine, that is the problem. this is only in console mode - from when i boot up until i start x.

I forgot about that part- normally your monitor should switch modes so that it expands the screen. Have you used this distribution before without the adapter? Check your boot paramaters, maybe it's set up to use a framebuffer?

i changed the monitor and it worked fine .. lol i donno what the problem is, odd.

RIGHT ON!

This is the most straight forward answer I have seen yet on this forum!!

this is WAY BIG!!!!

W A Y B I G !!!!!!!

I have been tooling around trying to find a distro that was the friendliest and best working after the install.

About half of the more complex distros give you this tiny screen.

Why!?!

This worked perfectly to give the screen size I wanted

Yeah!

This needs to ber shouted from the hil tops if we are to create a community of users other than seasoned IT people.