Re: [PATCH TO TEST] VESA [1024x768] mode support for FreeBSD-CURRENT

Didier Wiroth wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm using freebsd 5.4-prerelease on my laptop. My laptop has an ati
> mobility radeon 9600.
> Unfortunately it has very poor console vesa support. SC_PIXEL_MODE does
> not work, 90x60 is the highest resolution I can get for now.
> It looks like I'm not the only one having this problem with ati
> chipsets:
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=1091839+1096057+/usr/local/w
> ww/db/text/2005/freebsd-questions/20050123.freebsd-questions
> 
> 
> I saw this posting:
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2004-August/035621.ht
> ml
> 
> Unfortunately I'm not a programmer and have no ... to very poor patching
> skills.
> It looks to me, that in this posting(s) a "few" patches are grouped
> together to enable vesa 1024x768.
> 
> 1) Has someone applied this patches?
> 2) As the patch(es) is/are on the entire page, I don't know how to
> separate them. Would someone mail me as an attachment the different
> patches and tell me how I should apply them:
> for example, mail me patch1, patch2, patch3
> and the explanation how to patch them:
> cd /usr/src
> patch < ~/patch1
> patch < ~/patch2 ...etc

I think the newest and probably best (?) patch was prepared by Xin Li
(deplhij_at_freebsd.org) who is also committer. I sent this email to him
(or she? - sorry about that) in case he has some comments. Beware that
he said he experienced some problems with previous version of the patch.

I haven't tested this version of the patch myself but it at least
compiles.

It's available at http://people.freebsd.org/~delphij/vesa/
in files syscons.diff.20050215 and vidcontrol.diff.20050215

You would apply them with:

cd /usr/src/sys/dev/syscons
patch < /path/syscons.diff.20050215
cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/vidcontrol
patch </path/vidcontrol.diff.20050215
make clean
make all
make install

You need also to rebuild and reinstall the kernel. You must have
'options SC_PIXEL_MODE' in your kernel config. You also need to have
VESA available - you can load it with kldload vesa or include it in the
kernel with 'options VESA'.

After reboot with the new kernel you should be able to get list of all
VESA and standard modes your card support with 'vidcontrol -i mode'. To
be able to use them as your console mode you need to have the
appropriate font loaded. The font resolution is seen in vidcontrol
output in the 'font' column. To load the font 8x8 you can use
'vidcontrol -f /usr/share/syscons/fonts/cp437-8x8.fnt' or similar. To
set the mode use 'vidcontrol MODE_$num' where $num is the mode number
(first column in 'vidcontrol -i mode' output).

HTH

Michal