How to get a high resolution console for FreeBSD inside a VMWare image?

Jared Evans jnevans at gmail.com
Fri Oct 14 11:12:40 PDT 2005


I looked over the link but I don't think it's related to the solution I'm
looking for. I don't have any problems with high resolution X console.

I'm talking about the regular text console when you first boot the machine.

Jared

>yeah...you'll need to install the vmware tools for FreeBSD. >Here's the
link:
>
>http://www.vmware.com/support/ws45/doc/new_guest_tools_ws.html#1008244<http://www.vmware.com/support/ws45/doc/new_guest_tools_ws.html#1008244>
>
>I was in the same situation and it worked for me.
>
>Teo


On 10/14/05, Jared Evans <jnevans at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I know that this isn't exactly a standard configuration (VMWare as opposed
> to native installation) for FreeBSD so most of the answers I found online
> weren't really applicable for me.
>
> I simply wanted a high resolution FreeBSD console PTYs running under
> VMWare. It was surprisingly more complex than I expected:
>
> When attempting to change screen resolution for a console in FreeBSD
> running under VMWare, I ran across this error message:
>
> > vidcontrol -g 100x37 VESA_800x600
>
> vidcontrol: cannot set videomode inappropriate ioctl for device
>
> It seemed to me that VMWare was unable to init VESA correctly in console
> but strangely enough Xorg is capable of changing to a higher resolution
> without any problems.
>
> After some googling:
>
> VESA driver in current source tree checks the NONVGA flag of VESA
> information block when loading. If this flag is set it will refuse to
> initialize. Most VESA adapters do not set this flag, but the virtual display
> adapter in VMWare does.
>
> in src/sys/i386/isa/vesa.c, there is a check for the flag V_NONVGA in line
> 655. If you comment it out, flag check will be bypassed. After all, if Xorg
> can use higher resolution, there shouldn't be a problem using VESA on the
> console!
>
> Re-compiling my kernel to include the below as suggested by several more
> web searches:
>
> options VESA
> options SC_PIXEL_MODE
> options VGA_WIDTH90
>
> rebooting then:
>
> > vidcontrol -g 100x37 VESA_800x600
>
> vidcontrol: operation not supported by device
>
> Any more tips for me?
>



--
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