When your computer boots up, no matter how much you hate terminals you’ll see the bios information as text(with some exceptions of course, ie - bios splashes). I don’t know the quantities, but approximately when 6 peoples hate it 2 people love it, and another 2 people looks for a better terminal. More clearly, smaller font sizes, so that we can make use of the space.

Apparently, we can’t really control the text size of the bios output, but when it comes to ttys, there is a kernel parameter called “vga”. This is in common usage and you must be probably using it. So, am I.

If you don’t know how to use it, it’s the bootloder config file. “/boot/grub/menu.lst” in case of you are using grub.

However, since I upgraded to gusty, “vga=792″ kernel parameter didn’t work properly. It’s due to some restrictions on the framebuffer driver. Here is the work around :

1. Add “fbcon” and “vesafb” to “/etc/initramfs-tools/modules”. (In two separate lines)
2. Open “/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer” and comment out the “blacklist vesafb” line. It should look like “#blacklist vesafb”. (You can delete that if you want)
3. Regenerate initram file by typing “sudo update-initramfs -u” in the terminal

Restart your computer and enjoy

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 12:04 am and is filed under Linux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.