Font too small during install on Powermac G5

D

der.jan

I've got my hands on an Apple "Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5" (PowerMac11,2) with a GeForce 6600LE. It's connected with a DVI-to-HDMI-Cable to my LG 4K monitor (it's the only one I have).

Booting Mac OS X 10.4 works without a problem, but it's not of much use to me, so I decided to install FreeBSD. I successfully flashed a USB stick with FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-memstick.img and I can boot from it through Open Firmware (cmd + alt + O + F and then enter boot ud:,\\:tbxi).

However, the console font is really small, both in Open Firmware, the FreeBSD boot messages, and the installer (see attached photos). They are also not printed clearly, so I have to guess what's shown on the screen.

foto-1.jpg foto-2.jpg foto-3.jpg

I found this thread but set kern.vty=sc doesn't change anything and mode 0 or mode 2 fails ( mode not found). Is there any way to change the resolution so I can read what I'm installing or do I have to get another monitor?
 
I guess it is because of vesa driver selecting the native display resolution and using that in graphics mode.
Setting hw.vga.textmode="YES" in the boot options (and /boot/loader,conf when you set up the system) restricts it to text mode and the available modes there, defaulting to 80x25.

Another workaround could be to unplug the monitor while bootup, so that no EDID information gets transferred.
This should make the vesa driver default to standard VGA, so you can plug in the monitor cable again when the bsd installer has started up.
 
Thanks for your reply, Snurg. Unfortunately, both solutions didn't work. Setting hw.vga.textmode="YES" (or hw.vga.textmode=1) was ignored, and booting without a monitor attached did not show an image even when plugging in the cable later. Booting into Open Firmware, typing in the command to boot from USB, removing the monitor cable, booting into the FreeBSD installer, and then plugging in the cable again did also not change the small font.

It seemed like Open Firmware was remembering the resolution, which got me to an idea: I booted into OS X, changed the resolution to 1280x1024 and rebooted into the FreeBSD installer – this time with a large enough font to continue :)
 
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