Re: [gentoo-user] console size/display anomaly

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 09:54:04AM -0400, John Blinka wrote

> Any ideas?

  The 1940's called... they want their overscan back.  It sounds like
your TV set has "overscan", a relic of the 1940's.  I have a 13-year old
plasma digital, and get the same effect.  Back in the 1940's, and up
until the advent of ATSC, TV sets used CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) displays.
As they aged, the picture shrank, and the annoying vertical blanking
info bar at the top of the picture came into view.  To prevent this,
manufacturers *DELIBERATELY* oversized the picture, so that as the TV
aged, the picture would still fill the entire screen.  This is entirely
unnecessary on digital TV sets, where vertical blanking info doesn't
exist, and the picture size is fixed, and never shrinks.  But some
manufacturers are effing idiots and *DELIBERATELY* build in overscan on
digital TVs!!!

  Check your TV's handbook, and see if it has a "fullpixel" setting or
something similar in the setup menu.  Failing that your best bet in X is
"xrandr"; emerge it if you don't have it.  In a gui terminal (e.g.
xterm), execute something like...

xrandr --scale '1.25x1.25'

...This downscales the width (1st number) and height (2nd number) to 80%
of their original size, because 1 / 1.25 = 0.8

  You'll have to play around with the width and height parameters to get
something that fills your screen without overscanning.  Interpolation
may result in blurry fonts.  If so, throw in one of...

--filter 'bilinear'
--filter 'nearest'

...on the command line and see if it helps.  xrandr can do a bunch of
"interesting" stuff if you want.  You might also want try...

xrandr --setmonitor name geometry outputs

...to tweak image size.  Check the xrandr man page for "--setmonitor".

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications