CentOS - May 2006 - Changing Console Display Settings

Hmm.. after all these years I actually have a monitor on my desk beside 
me going through a couple of KVMs to our racks. So, I hope to make more 
use of direct console connections instead of shelling in.

But, now.... the text has always been huge and the interface clunky. And 
after a bit of googling around, and file searching on the system, I 
can't seem to find where or if there is a way to change the default 
console display settings. I sure would be nice to go to a higher 
resolution so to speak.

Can anybody point me in the right direction on where to look?

Note, these systems are all server installs.. no stinkin' GUIs. ;)

Thanks,
John Hinton

On Sat, 2006-05-13 at 16:45 -0400, John Hinton wrote:
> Hmm.. after all these years I actually have a monitor on my desk beside 
> me going through a couple of KVMs to our racks. So, I hope to make more 
> use of direct console connections instead of shelling in.
> 
> But, now.... the text has always been huge and the interface clunky. And 
> after a bit of googling around, and file searching on the system, I 
> can't seem to find where or if there is a way to change the default 
> console display settings. I sure would be nice to go to a higher 
> resolution so to speak.
> 
> Can anybody point me in the right direction on where to look?
From rom vague long-ago memories... Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) and/or
framebuffer? IIRC, it'll be need a kernel config, so you might need to
look at the source or look at some of the add on repositories. I *think*
I actually did that in a long-ago LFS implementation. Was neat. But the
feature needs to be turned on in the kernel, IIRC? And then a config and
boot setup.

A quick google for "framebuffer kernel source vga" returns some
entries
that make me think it's still available.shows lots of entries. Maybe
your answer is there?
> 
> Note, these systems are all server installs.. no stinkin' GUIs. ;)
>
> Thanks,
> John Hinton
> <snip sig stuff>
HTH
-- 
Bill
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On 13/05/06, John Hinton <webmaster at ew3d.com>
wrote:
> is a way to change the default
> console display settings.
http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/hiresconsole.html

I've used the "Configuring Lilo" section from the link above with
success on systems using either lilo or grub. Just append...

vga=xxx

... to your boot options where xxx is one of

640x480 	800x600 	1024x768 	1280x1024
256 	769 	771 	773 	775
32K 	784 	787 	790 	793
64K 	785 	788 	791 	794
16M 	786 	789 	792 	795

Will.