Re: [gentoo-user] Any way to get real text console without killing X capability?

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 09:40:41PM +0000, Mick wrote

> Leave KMS enabled and add the parameter:
>
>   video=1024x768 (or whatever suits your screen and taste)
>
> to your kernel line.  You shouldn't need vesafb, uvesa or any other
> drivers to achieve this.

  Thanks very much.  That works.  I feel stupid.  I always used "VGA=6"
to get the equivalant of "video=640x480".  When "VGA=6" stopped working,
it didn't occur to me to try "video=640x480", because I assumed they
were identical.

  Anyhow, I'm typing this in a text console.  /etc/conf.d/consolefont is

CONSOLEFONT="lat1-10"

  Combine that with 640x480 video, and that gives me an 80x48 textmode
display.  Because I'm using a 10-pixel-high font, the text is a lot
nicer than VGA 80x50 that you may have seen on Windows.  That mode uses
an 8-pixel-high font on a 640x400 display for 50 rows.  Doing an "ll"
finds more lat1-?? fonts in /usr/share/consolefonts, which give the
following possible text displays for "video=640x480"...

lat1-08 ==> 80x60
lat1-10 ==> 80x48
lat1-12 ==> 80x40
lat1-14 ==> 80x34
lat1-16 ==> 80x30

  As they say in the infomercials "but wait, there's more".  My monitor
supports 1280x720 and 1280x1024 modes.  Using "screen" I should be able
to do splitscreen mode with 2 sessions side-by-each.  Or vim in one
screen with :vsplit splitting into two subscreens.  Possibilities
include two side-by-each sessions of...

Font      1280x720  1280x1024

lat1-08 ==> 80x90   80x128
lat1-10 ==> 80x72   80x102
lat1-12 ==> 80x60   80x85
lat1-14 ==> 80x51   80x73
lat1-16 ==> 80x45   80x64

  I feel like a kid with a shiney new toy.  And when prices for 30 inch
monitors come down, I could go nuts with *THREE* 80-column screens
side-by-each in 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 video mode.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>