Console resolution/font size

[Polytropon]

On Wed, 25 Nov 2020 18:17:03 +0100, Christoph Brinkhaus wrote:
> Am Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 12:03:42PM -0500 schrieb Janos Dohanics:
> > On Wed, 25 Nov 2020 09:45:06 +0100
> > Christoph Brinkhaus <c.brinkhaus at t-online.de> wrote:
> > 
> > > Am Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 02:03:18AM -0500 schrieb Janos Dohanics:
> > > > Hello,
> > >  
> > > Hello Janos!
> > > 
> > > > [...]
> > > > 
> > > > How can I make a specific console resolution presistent across
> > > > reboots? And how would I set a resolution between 800x600 and
> > > > 1920x1080? Why is the setting in /boot/loader.conf ignored?
> > >  
> > > 
> > > Please have a look at efi_max_resolution which is specfied in
> > > /boot/loader.conf. I use that on one of my laptops.
> > > 
> > > efi_max_resolution
> > > Specify the maximum desired resolution for the EFI
> > > console.  The following values are accepted:
> > > 
> > > Value           Resolution
> > > 480p            640x480
> > > 720p            1280x720
> > > 1080p           1920x1080
> > > 2160p           3840x2160
> > > 4k              3840x2160
> > > 5k              5120x2880
> > > WidthxHeight    WidthxHeight
> 
> Dear Janos,
> 
> thank you for the feed back.
>  
> > Hi Christoph,
> > 
> > I have changed /boot/loader.conf as you have suggested:
> > 
> > # cat /boot/loader.conf
> > kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
> > kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
> > cryptodev_load="YES"
> > zfs_load="YES"
> > efi_max_resolution="720p"
> > 
> > Works perfect, thank you!
> > 
> > Except: The FreeBSD Boot Loader Menu is not displayed. After 10
> > seconds, the boot process items keep scrolling at a readable resolution.
>  
> This is not something one want to have.
> The only idea I have is to increase the delay of the boot menue.

It is already 10 seconds. For a Thinkpad T480, 10 seconds should
be more than sufficient for the screen to switch modes (if it
actually does that)...

On modern hardware, it is absolutely important to load the correct
KMS drivers, and it's possible to play with fonts. All of this is
not really documented well, and personally I still consider it to
be a bit experimental because vt can still not sufficiently do what
sc could do for decades. There are many variables and moving parts,
such as graphics card and driver, UEFI, display internal firmware,
ant-tiny fonts, ugly colors, and all that, also DRM drivers and how
and when they are loaded. A _text_ mode (per definition) no longer
exists, it's all some kind of graphics mode. You need to experiment
with screen size and fonts if you want to get a readable non-X11
mode on your machine.

Two sources of information are those:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Newcons

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics

Also check the related manual pages, especially "man 5 loader.conf".

Or say goodbye to "text mode" entirely and use X instead. It makes
life a lot easier. ;-)




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...