Re: Are textmode consoles/terminals still supported?

> On 20. märts 2017, at 23:58, Chris H <bsd-lists_at_bsdforge.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm attempting to get a video card that DTRT on FreeBSD.
> I started with the graphics provided by an AMD A6-7470K,
> only to discover it's not yet supported. So I forked out
> for a recent nvidia card, and build/installed a new
> world/kernel.
> Everything seemed to be as one would expect, except there
> was an issue with loader.efi. So I had to move mine aside,
> and use the one off the install media (tho I understand
> the (u)efi has since been fixed). Now, I'm attempting to
> obtain textmode. The text stripped from a tty, and pasted
> to a new file in a textmode editor -- ee(1) for example;
> pads the line with spaces to EOL, and prefaces each line
> following the first line with rubbish (about 1 to 2
> characters worth).
> So "graphics mode" or vt(4) isn't going to get it, for me.
> Textmode, and syscons(4) has always worked as expected, and
> I thought I'd try to re-enable it, or get textmode via vt(4).
> But all attempts fail.
> excerpt from my KERNCONF
> 
> device		vga
> options 	VESA
> 
> device		sc
> options 	SC_PIXEL_MODE
> 
> device		vt
> device		vt_vga
> device		vt_efifb
> 
> However, following the advice on the freebsd wiki, querying
> the value in sysctl(8) returns:
> # sysctl hw.vga.textmode
> sysctl: unknown oid 'hw.vga.textmode'
> 
> OK how bout vidcontrol(1)
> # vidcontrol -i adapter
> vidcontrol: obtaining adapter information: Inappropriate ioctl for device
> 
> So, it appears from my standpoint that textmode is no longer
> supported?
> 
> FWIW:
> FreeBSD trump.whitehouse.gov.test 12.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT #0 r314700:
> Sun Mar 5 09:01:30 PST 2017
> root_at_trump.whitehouse.gov.test:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/TESTKERN amd6
> 
> Thank you for anything that might help me obtain textmode again.
> 
> -

The problem with UEFI is that the fact if you can only get “text” aka VGA text mode if your card happens to have the proper firmware and you can set up the card… UEFI as such does only provide framebuffer based console, and that framebuffer is either linear memory mapped or pure software - in last case only KMS console framebuffer will do any good.

rgds,
toomas