[PATCH TO TEST] VESA [1024x768] mode support for FreeBSD-CURRENT

[Jay O'Brien]

Michal Mertl wrote:

> Didier Wiroth wrote:
> 
> 
>>Hi,
>>
>>I'm using freebsd 5.4-prerelease on my laptop. My laptop has an ati
>>mobility radeon 9600.
>>Unfortunately it has very poor console vesa support. SC_PIXEL_MODE does
>>not work, 90x60 is the highest resolution I can get for now.
>>It looks like I'm not the only one having this problem with ati
>>chipsets:
>>http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=1091839+1096057+/usr/local/w
>>ww/db/text/2005/freebsd-questions/20050123.freebsd-questions
>>
>>
>>I saw this posting:
>>http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2004-August/035621.ht
>>ml
>>
>>Unfortunately I'm not a programmer and have no ... to very poor patching
>>skills.
>>It looks to me, that in this posting(s) a "few" patches are grouped
>>together to enable vesa 1024x768.
>>
>>1) Has someone applied this patches?
>>2) As the patch(es) is/are on the entire page, I don't know how to
>>separate them. Would someone mail me as an attachment the different
>>patches and tell me how I should apply them:
>>for example, mail me patch1, patch2, patch3
>>and the explanation how to patch them:
>>cd /usr/src
>>patch < ~/patch1
>>patch < ~/patch2 ...etc
> 
> 
> I think the newest and probably best (?) patch was prepared by Xin Li
> (deplhij at freebsd.org) who is also committer. I sent this email to him
> (or she? - sorry about that) in case he has some comments. Beware that
> he said he experienced some problems with previous version of the patch.
> 
> I haven't tested this version of the patch myself but it at least
> compiles.
> 
> It's available at http://people.freebsd.org/~delphij/vesa/
> in files syscons.diff.20050215 and vidcontrol.diff.20050215
> 
> You would apply them with:
> 
> cd /usr/src/sys/dev/syscons
> patch < /path/syscons.diff.20050215
> cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/vidcontrol
> patch </path/vidcontrol.diff.20050215
> make clean
> make all
> make install
> 
> You need also to rebuild and reinstall the kernel. You must have
> 'options SC_PIXEL_MODE' in your kernel config. You also need to have
> VESA available - you can load it with kldload vesa or include it in the
> kernel with 'options VESA'.
> 
> After reboot with the new kernel you should be able to get list of all
> VESA and standard modes your card support with 'vidcontrol -i mode'. To
> be able to use them as your console mode you need to have the
> appropriate font loaded. The font resolution is seen in vidcontrol
> output in the 'font' column. To load the font 8x8 you can use
> 'vidcontrol -f /usr/share/syscons/fonts/cp437-8x8.fnt' or similar. To
> set the mode use 'vidcontrol MODE_$num' where $num is the mode number
> (first column in 'vidcontrol -i mode' output).
> 
> HTH
> 
> Michal
> 
> 


I feel like I am missing a lot here. I want to display 132 characters per 
line on my console. I am not running X Windows and it is not a notebook.
I am running 5.3-RELEASE-p5 #0.

What is this SC_PIXEL_MODE and where may I find documentation on it? I 
don't find it in /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/NOTES. 

To "rebuild and reinstall the kernel", after editing my 
/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC to insert 'options SC_PIXEL_MODE', would I 
'make buildkernel' and then 'make installkernel' or is there something 
else I'm missing?  

I note that some of the messages are posted to multiple mailing lists, 
and I suspect that as I only read questions at freebsd.org I'm not seeing 
the entire story.

Jay O'Brien 
Rio Linda, California USA