Solved vidcontrol and sc

Hi All,

Hope you are all having a good Sunday at the terminal :)

noob question again.

I have installed nvidia driver as pkg, Installed xfce and all configured and working fine. However, I find myself more at the console (i get distracted by too many windows) to configure my box.

I installed lynx and works fine.

80x25 is a bit restricting. So I read about vidcontrol(1), and Googled a lot and read the handbook and the examples in man pages. It just refuses to work for me. I just want something like 80x60 or any other mode.

The kernel is standard, sc(4) is loaded in the kernel with the hint as advised in man pages.
Vidcontrol always shows fb0 rather than my card. Is that normal?

It also shows a lot of modes supported but I cannot set any, keep saying something like "Operation not supported by device".

Code:
fb0:
  vga0, type:VESA VGA (5), flags:0x700ff
  initial mode:24, current mode:24, BIOS mode:3
  frame buffer window:0xb8000, buffer size:0x8000
  window size:0x8000, origin:0x0
  display start address (0, 0), scan line width:80
  reserved:0x0
  mode#  flags  type  size  font  window  linear buffer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24 (0x018) 0x00000001 T 80x25  8x16  0xb8000 32k 32k 0x00000000 32k
30 (0x01e) 0x00000001 T 80x50  8x8  0xb8000 32k 32k 0x00000000 32k
32 (0x020) 0x00000001 T 80x30  8x16  0xb8000 32k 32k 0x00000000 32k
34 (0x022) 0x00000001 T 80x60  8x8  0xb8000 32k 32k 0x00000000 32k
256 (0x100) 0x0000001f G 640x400x8 P  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 250k
257 (0x101) 0x0000001f G 640x480x8 P  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 300k
258 (0x102) 0x0000001b G 800x600x4 4  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0x00000000 234k
259 (0x103) 0x0000001f G 800x600x8 P  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 468k
260 (0x104) 0x0000001b G 1024x768x4 4  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0x00000000 384k
261 (0x105) 0x0000001f G 1024x768x8 P  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 768k
262 (0x106) 0x0000001b G 1280x1024x4 4  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0x00000000 640k
263 (0x107) 0x0000001f G 1280x1024x8 P  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 1280k
270 (0x10e) 0x0000001f G 320x200x16 D  8x8  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 125k
271 (0x10f) 0x0000001f G 320x200x32 D  8x8  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 250k
273 (0x111) 0x0000001f G 640x480x16 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 600k
274 (0x112) 0x0000001f G 640x480x32 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 1200k
276 (0x114) 0x0000001f G 800x600x16 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 937k
277 (0x115) 0x0000001f G 800x600x32 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 1875k
279 (0x117) 0x0000001f G 1024x768x16 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 1536k
280 (0x118) 0x0000001f G 1024x768x32 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 3072k
282 (0x11a) 0x0000001f G 1280x1024x16 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 2560k
283 (0x11b) 0x0000001f G 1280x1024x32 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 5120k
304 (0x130) 0x0000001f G 320x200x8 P  8x8  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 62k
305 (0x131) 0x0000001f G 320x400x8 P  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 125k
306 (0x132) 0x0000001f G 320x400x16 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 250k
307 (0x133) 0x0000001f G 320x400x32 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 500k
308 (0x134) 0x0000001f G 320x240x8 P  8x8  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 75k
309 (0x135) 0x0000001f G 320x240x16 D  8x8  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 150k
310 (0x136) 0x0000001f G 320x240x32 D  8x8  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 300k
317 (0x13d) 0x0000001f G 640x400x16 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 500k
318 (0x13e) 0x0000001f G 640x400x32 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 1000k
352 (0x160) 0x0000001f G 1280x800x8 P  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 1000k
353 (0x161) 0x0000001f G 1280x800x32 D  8x16  0xa0000 64k 64k 0xe9000000 4000k
Card is nvidia GTX 560.

I installed from pkg, should I compile it from ports?

EDIT: I compiled from ports with same results.

Thanks
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hello,

basically, the 2 main command to set the console resolution is
vidcontrol -i mode
and then you choose the appropriate, with
vidcontrol MODE_XXX
Where the "XXX" is the first three digits of the first commands output. I would try out the greatest possible resolution (353 in your case) and then decrease it if the letters are too small.
Once you have find the perfect resolution, you can make this setting permanent, adding this line to the /etc/rc.conf
allscreens_flags="MODE_XXX"
Where "XXX" is again, your ideal resolution.
 
Done all that. I keep getting as I mentioned "Operation not supported by device".

And vidcontrol(1) shows fb0 for adapter instead of nvidia.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The only mode that works with my NVIDIA card is: vidcontrol VESA_800x600

Every other mode either garbles the terminal or outputs "Operation not supported by device".

Have you considered installing a minimal window manager for Xorg? x11-wm/dwm or x11-wm/i3 come to mind. These are tiling window managers that manage window layout for you. Just start your favorite terminal emulator. Both window managers have a full screen mode where you can see only one window at a time, so you won't get distracted by anything else.
 
Nice. That worked fine and good enough for me.

Thanks all
 
Last edited by a moderator:
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