Poor Console resolution on Compaq 2103US

From: Mervin McDougall (mcd_advisory_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 12/23/04

  • Next message: Nikolas Britton: "Re: Time to shut down this list?" 
    Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:46:20 -0800 (PST)
To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org

    I have one experience to share as a newbie, that of
    trying to get a proper console resolution on my
    laptop. I chose to stick with FreeBSD over Slackware
    for my laptop for the simplicity in its init system
    and fewer init levels, its ports and packages system
    which reduces the stress of looking for a file and all
    its dependencies and getting it downloaded, compiled
    and using on my laptop and basically its speed of
    booting- in 2/3 the time it takes slackware linux to
    boot, bsd is at the loging prompt.However,getting the
    proper console resolution was a pain as I favour
    console over X.

    I tried recompiling the kernel including support for
    Vesa by including options VESA and SC_PIXEL_MODE and
    that didn't work.I tried compiling the kernel with
    suppor for VGA_90WIDTH and that still did not provide
    me with adequate space on my screen to get anything
    else done. My console only the center of my screen and
    only occupied a 1/3 rd of the entire screen. I was
    very stressed until I cam across a website of someone
    who had successfully installed FreeBSD 5.2.1 on a
    similar laptop. I contacted him and he explained that
    he had similar problem but got over the issue by
    making use of a patch which allowed me to achieve
    screen resolutions of 1024x768.

    I have gotten over the problem happily but there are
    still some issues that the patch created in making use
    of it as slower performance in switching from console
    to X and the printing of error information when the
    kernel is initiating vidcontrol but I get to use
    console more often thankfully.

    I wish that the freebsd team would look into fixing
    any errors in vidcontrol to get the problem with
    screen resolutions on laptops fixed. I was able to do
    this with ease using linux framebuffer settings with
    slackware but had so much difficulty getting that done
    under freebsd 5.3.

    I could have chosen to give up and simply use linux
    but I like the way freebsd performs something about it
    is just magically and wouldn't want to miss out on
    using it. I just wish somethng could be done to better
    the performance of the system as is and get rid of
    some of those escape errors. or gett a better patch
    from the freebsd team.

    If anyone has a similar laptop and wants to get some
    specifics about what works and what doesn't feel free
    to visit
    http://demira.shopkeeper.de/~sascha/nx9005/
    its pretty informative.

    Mervin McDougall

                    
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