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

[Michal Mertl]

Jay O'Brien wrote:
> Michal Mertl wrote:

> >>
> >>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.
> > 
> > 
> > It doesn't matter. I only saw the most complaints from notebook owners
> > who didn't have text mode console covering all LCD surface.
> > 
> > 
> >>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. 
> > 
> > 
> > man syscons(4). It's also mentioned in NOTES although not the NOTES you
> > were looking at. Don't forget that on 5.x there are two conf directories
> > - one platform independent in /sys/conf and other in /sys/$ARCH/conf.
> > Common (platform independent) options like this one are
> > in /sys/conf/NOTES.
> > 
> 
> 
> Thanks! Now that I see that it is perhaps not required for my system, that 
> is not a laptop, is it possible that I don't need this at all? Is it 
> definitely needed to support 132 character terminal mode, or is just 
> needed for laptops? 

There's no standard VGA 132 character text mode. It's either provided by
VESA or emulated using some graphics mode. Newer graphics hardware
stopped supporting extended text modes. If you want such modes you need
to emulate them (render the characters using lots of small dots instead
of just writing characters to the adapter which renders them for you).
Support for this functionality is included in syscons/vga driver when
you define options SC_PIXEL_MODE. Standard FreeBSD supports only planar
graphics mode 800x600 dots with 4 bits (16) of color information per
pixel which can be run on old plain VGA with 256KB of memory.

The patches we are talking about add support for rendering the
characters in any graphics mode your card supports (through VESA) with
>= 15 bits per pixel. You could then run say 1600x1200x32 bpp (16milions
of colours) for a text mode console. You can't use any graphics there
but the textual resolution will be bigger. There also isn't support for
using simultaneously more than 16 (or is it 15?) different colors for
characters even when milions are technically possible.

> It is wonderful to be a part of a caring community that spans the 
> world, without concern for international borders. Fortunately for 
> me, everyone uses english; I'm stuck with only one language (plus 
> international morse code, but that's another story).

Yes, it really is great. Not the English though. I'd prefer Czech but
I'm afraid it's a lost battle :-).

Michal