can't change the console text on my netbook
 

I just installed Slackware 13.1 on my Acer a0531h.

My first problem is the size of letters on pure console. It's too small.

I tried tweaking lilo but even using 'normal' doesn't change the size of letters. I haven't changed the default font (I think it's called default8x16).

The text looks pretty sharp though, so I'm wondering whether this is its native resolution.

The text during installation was huge, and quite blurry. I just want to have a text size I can easily read and if possible be sharp.

I know I can start X and have whatever font family and size I want, but somehow I feel better using pure console.

Just in case it matters, I want to say that eventually I want to have UTF8 support on the command line (so that I can read and write Greek).

Any ideas or keywords?

Try running setconsolefont and seeing if there's a better one.

Re UTF-8 I did a wiki article on it some time ago:

http://slackwiki.org/Utf-8_linux_console

There is not a font large enough to compensate for this tiny font size that I'm seeing. Besides, that's not the *right* way of doing it :)

I was able to find some more info about it. It's the frammebuffer. I can disable it with:

on lilo.conf, or type:

on Lilo's book prompt, but that prevents X from starting. X sais it needs fbdev (blame the Intel drivers?), which nomodeset promptly disables. So I guess the solution would be to just adjust the framebuffer resolution.

I notice that the framebuffer activated the moment I see this message:

So it's that "128x37" thing that I need to adjust. Google shows a lot of discussions over this but I'm a bit comfussed, so it would be nice to tell me some straightforward keywords to look up for.

Now, about utf-8. I was able to follow your guide up till the point where I could see UTF-8 text files (with 'less' and 'vim', thank god vim is utf8 enabled by default) but I still can't write in Greek. I am a bit comfussed about keymaps at this point. Never heard them before. I'm still researching this on the web.

Try adding ' video=inteldrmfb:mode=1024x600' to the 'append =' in your /etc/lilo.conf.
This works well for me with my Acer eM250 with an Intel 945GME graphics controller.
This is not the same as your Intel GMA950 though, so no guarantee.

1024x600 is the native resolution on both of our netbooks. The option you gave me didn't make any difference in the resolution.

The kernel however responds to video=80x25, making the letter super-size big! (I tried that option in the Lilo prompt, so as not to booting from external medium and fix lilo.conf later.)

In fact, I tried one more combination with the video=... command and it gave me the same result (not smaller, not bigger letters).

So the conclusion is that I can't change the letter size? (Unless I disable inteldrbfm with 'nomodeset' but then X will not start).

Simply using "video=640x480" should force the console resolution to 640x480 if you are using any of the KMS drivers (intel, radeon, nouveau). If that's not working, please show us the output of 'dmesg'.

Adam

The system responds to video=640x480. This solves the problem. Thank you :)

Just as a sidenote, 480 makes the text go off-screen, so 640x400 is better.

Let me go a bit off-topic and ask, is your netbook really hot? With an enviroment temperature of 32C (89.6F) this netbook sits idle at 54c (129.2F)

Here the dmesg too, just in case: http://pastebin.com/T9XPCbLz