Is there a way to programmatically detect whether the hardware
supports a particular character mode? I know there's no "query"
option is wsconscfg; will the driver know enough to bail, or is just a
trial-and-error scenario?
--david
On 2/12/06, J.C. Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 02:51:17 +0100, Moritz Lutz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> >Hi list,
> >
> >i want to set up my screen resolution on tty to 1024x768 and smaller
> >fonts,
> >because i only work on tty on this maschine and this big fonts are a
> >very
> >bad on a 10,4" display. So is there a way to get this work. Because
> >i don't find anything in the FAQ and with google.
> >
> >mfg
> >
> >eSpo
>
> As Constintine pointed out there is a FAQ entry dealing with how to
> change the character resolution on terminal displays. Unfortunately, not
> all hardware supports switching character resolution.
>
> More importantly, you need to realize that monitors have more than one
> mode. Though there are some rare "specialty" monitors out there,
> usually, a monitor only two modes; (1) character mode and (2) graphics
> mode. From there, these two modes are further divided into sub-modes,
> such as graphics resolution ("1024x768") and character resolution
> (80x40).
>
> Equally important, you need to realize that not all video output
> hardware (i.e. commonly called "video cards" "graphics cards" or "frame
> buffers") supports all the possible monitor modes and sub-modes.
>
> When you say "1024x768" you are talking about a graphics mode measured
> in dots per inch.
>
> Terminals (tty) are almost always character mode, where "80x40" measures
> the number of character column and character rows.
>
> In other words, you are talking about two entirely different things.
>
> In most situations, the only thing you can do to the character mode
> output of tty is change the character resolution and Constintine pointed
> out the relevant FAQ entry.
>
> The most commonly used way to venture into the world of graphics mode is
> to run an X server and xterm's.
>
> I hope this makes things clear.
>
> kind regards,
> JCR
