On Wed, 09 Oct 2013 21:16:11 -0400 (EDT), Antonio Paiva wrote: > > I have recently acquired an old Sony Vaio PCG-C1VN (aka, a "PictureBook") > and installed Debian wheezy. The problem is that I can only get the > *console* to run at 640x480 resolution. > > The C1VN has a (very wide) native resolution of 1024x480, but using only > 640x480 is a serious waste of screen real estate. It works fine in X but, > the for uses I have in mind (playing some music and reading/writing text), > all I need works on the console. Moreover, using X slows down the machine > enough to have a noticeable drag (not unbearable, not very annoying). (Bear > in mind all this has is a Transmeta Crusoe @600MHz ~= Pentium II @400Mhz, > and 112MB of RAM.) I'm using kernel modesetting (KMS) with the radeon > kernel module (graphics card is an ATI Rage Mobility / Mach64). I tried > setting the mode in GRUB via the GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX option, creating my > own framebuffer mode, but either made no difference or I ended up with an > even smaller resolution?! > > If you have any ideas or pointers to potential solutions, I would greatly > appreciate the help. Thank you. > > Best regards, > Antonio
What driver is used in X? The MACH64 driver in X is a non-KMS-based driver. (/var/log/Xorg.0.log should tell you what driver is being used.) There will be a whole bunch of lines which start with that driver name. For example: MACH64(0): VESA BIOS DETECTED If you are using a non-KMS-based X driver, then your console should be running in a hardware text mode, the default for which is 80 columns by 25 rows. (That's 640 pixels by 400 pixels with a character cell of 16 pixels high by 8 pixels wide.) This can be changed by the VGA option. See my LILO web page for more information about the VGA option http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/lilo.htm When using the VGA option with grub2, you have to use the linux16 and initrd16 commands instead of linux and initrd, as described in this web page: https://wiki.debian.org/GrubTransition At least, that's what I've been told. I myself don't use grub2, I use lilo. -- .''`. Stephen Powell : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/930339389.3648261.1381582664487.javamail.r...@md01.wow.synacor.com
