Changing console font/screen size

Berserker

Berserker

Berserker

Man of Honour
Joined
4 Nov 2002
Posts
15,513
Location
West Berkshire
I have just got myself a nice big monitor, and as with my Mac, I'd like to adjust the resolution on my Linux box (console) for a better fit.

Is there a command I can use to change the console height (lines) and/or width (columns), and/or the console font?

Thanks.
 
Yup - real, honest to goodness commandline. You don't think I waste folding cycles on a GUI now, do you? :p

OK, that's the font. Any ideas on the text size (it's a bit big right now - so more lines would make sense). :)
 
I just used Google to find that link. Some creative Googling of your own might throw up some more help. Or wait for Billy - I bet he will know.
 
I've seen it done via the kernel framebuffer but I'm not sure exactly how to do it. I'll have to research a bit.

EDIT:
Try appending
fbset -a "1920x1080-75"
or whatever the resolution you desire is to the end of the kernel image line in your grub list.
 
Last edited:
Tried the framebuffer, but for some reason my ATI drivers don't live well with it, so on the rare occasion I do want a GUI the system freezes. It's supposed to work but I cba fixing it right now as I'm switching to nVidia soon anyway.
 
If I want a high-res console then I boot with "video=vesafb:1600x1200-32@60" or some such in my bootloader (vesafb-tng, Gentoo), but I generally use VGA text mode console in 80x50 (vga=3841) as its much faster :)
 
In Arch, I have added in the kernel line of grub vga=773, which gives me a 1024*768, 8 bit console, but you could quite easily use 775 for 1280*1024, 8 bit or 796 for 1600*1200, 8 bit.

You can have 16 bit and 24 bit as well - but why would you?!!
 
Last edited:
well some programs like links and mplayer can make full use of a truecolour framebuffer without having to run under X :)
 
=walls= said:
hehe... or maybe more realistic ascii pr0n in lynx?!!
Click to expand...
Oh yes, viva la ascii pr0n. :D

Anyway, all of this seems to rely on vesafb or some other fb, which seems to not like my setup as stated earlier. I'll try again when I have the inclination (it's not the end of the world). :)
 
I got the console framebuffer working (figured out what I did wrong last time). \o/

Only problem now is I can't get X into a widescreen mode, no matter what settings I throw at it. :( :confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom