Console video/text mode

[zbig]

Hello

Is there any way to configure the video mode used in console on 22.1? Back when using 21 series, my VMware VM's console output looked like <Exhibit_1>: information-dense, with nice, small and slim font. But when switched to 22.1 (by means of creating a fresh VM, clean install and XML config import), it is now using 80x25 mode with chunky fonts as per <Exhibit_2>. I can't seem to recall ever manually changing any setting that could be related to that. Also, I was using os-vmware plugin with 21 as I am with 22.1. Needless to say, it doesn't make me lose any sleep but I'd appreciate any suggestions.

EDITed to add:
Please note the first screenshot (from series 21) got clipped width-wise by the forum software so it doesn't fully convey the difference as seen IRL.

Cheers and thank you for all the great work,
Zbig

[franco]

Looks like you are no longer using UEFI setting in the VM settings?


Cheers,
Franco

[zbig]

You are right that I had it set for BIOS! When I thought I was being extra careful with how I set up my VM, I still managed to mess that up.

However, even with EFI, while the font indeed gets slimmer and the line count changes from 25 to 31, the columns stay at 80 and it still doesn't get nowhere near the 21.7-level of font smallness and information density.

[franco]

I've never used oversize console if it exists. If it's configurable FreeBSD docs would know.


Cheers,
Franco

[zbig]

What I have also tried:

• Escaping to loader prompt at boot, then typing "mode 3"
• Adding a tunable "hw.vga.textmode=3"

None of these succeeded. But never mind, it doesn't really matter I was just curious because with previous version the "large console" sort of happened automagically for me. Thanks, anyway.

[karlson2k]

Actually I can confirm.

I had installed 19.7 initially two years ago and then upgraded via GUI to the new versions once they become available. Then I stuck with 21.1 version for a while and installed version 22.1 by using USB flash drive with formatting of the system drive.
The system is UEFI-based.

First thing I noticed with version 22.1 is too large and blurry font in console compared to previous versions. I'm not sure that bootloader was upgraded as part of automated upgrade from GUI, so maybe it is related to the old version of loaded which works just fine with my monitor.

Version 22.1 stick to resolution 800x600 starting from the bootloader. Virtual terminal (VT) doesn't change the resolution.
With VT disabled (from GUI) I have no output in console (looks like it hungs in bootloader as bootloader text remains on the screen, but it is actually working).
I tried different combination "EFI console" and "VGA console" but result was the same.

I solved it by adding tunable "exec" with value "gop set 0" which switch video output to monitor's native resolution.

[zbig]

Got this sorted out by adding screen.font=10x18 to my tunables. For the list of available font sizes: ls /boot/fonts

Used information from https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/changing-tty-resolution.79529/

@karlson2k: there's some other good info there, like efi_max_resolution that might work in your case.

[karlson2k]

More options are here: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=loader.conf&sektion=5&manpath=freebsd-release-ports

"efi_max_resolution" may work differently if you connect to another monitor.

"gop set 0" always sets native resolution and will work in the same way if you change your monitor.