[gentoo-amd64] I took the plunge with kde

[gentoo-amd64] I took the plunge with kde

[Paul Stear]

Well I now have kde 4.3.1 installed and apart from a few issues the update from 
3.5.10 went well.

***Well done***  to all the developers who have brought kde this far. I just 
need to get use to working slightly different now <grin>.

By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up screen?

Well thanks again to all who helped with kde4.3.1
Paul
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] I took the plunge with kde

[Anders Lövgren]

On Saturdayen den 5 September 2009 13.43.19 Paul Stear wrote:
> Well I now have kde 4.3.1 installed and apart from a few issues the update
> from 3.5.10 went well.
>
> ***Well done***  to all the developers who have brought kde this far. I
> just need to get use to working slightly different now <grin>.
>
> By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up
> screen?

Try append something like 'vga=791 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1280x800-16' to 
your kernel parameters in grub.conf

> Well thanks again to all who helped with kde4.3.1
> Paul

// Anders

Re: [gentoo-amd64] I took the plunge with kde

[Paul Stear]

On Saturday 05 Sep 2009 14:51:43 Anders Lövgren wrote:
> On Saturdayen den 5 September 2009 13.43.19 Paul Stear wrote:
> > Well I now have kde 4.3.1 installed and apart from a few issues the
> > update from 3.5.10 went well.
> >
> > ***Well done***  to all the developers who have brought kde this far. I
> > just need to get use to working slightly different now <grin>.
> >
> > By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up
> > screen?
> 
> Try append something like 'vga=791 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1280x800-16' to
> your kernel parameters in grub.conf
<snip>
Thanks Anders but it didn't work, I just had a blank screen but the machine did 
boot and gave me the kde loggin.
Paul

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[gentoo-amd64] Re: I took the plunge with kde

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 09/05/2009 02:43 PM, Paul Stear wrote:
> By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up screen?

What monitor do you have?  If it's a TFT, use its native resolution in 
the kernel parameters.  Though some widescreen resolutions aren't 
supported by some graphics cards' VESA BIOSes, sadly.

Another solution is to change the kernel font (in the kernel 
configuration, somewhere in the console framebuffer settings) and 
console font (/etc/conf.d/consolefont) since the kernel font will be 
replaced after the kernel has booted an init is run.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: I took the plunge with kde

[Dmitri Pogosyan]

> On 09/05/2009 02:43 PM, Paul Stear wrote:
> > By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up screen?
> 
> What monitor do you have?  If it's a TFT, use its native resolution in 
> the kernel parameters.  Though some widescreen resolutions aren't 
> supported by some graphics cards' VESA BIOSes, sadly.

actually, most of them are. I happily run with vesafb 1440x900x16 laptop
display (vga=0x36a) and 1680x1050x32 monitor (kernel parameter  vga=0x369 )
I had a tool that detects all VESA modes your card supports, but somehow
can't recall what was its name.


> 
> Another solution is to change the kernel font (in the kernel 
> configuration, somewhere in the console framebuffer settings) and 
> console font (/etc/conf.d/consolefont) since the kernel font will be 
> replaced after the kernel has booted an init is run.



--
Dmitri Pogosyan            Department of Physics
Professor                  University of Alberta
tel 1-780-492-2150         11322 - 89 Avenue
fax 1-780-492-0714         Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, CANADA

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: I took the plunge with kde

[Dmitri Pogosyan]

> On 09/05/2009 02:43 PM, Paul Stear wrote:
> > By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up screen?
> 
> What monitor do you have?  If it's a TFT, use its native resolution in 
> the kernel parameters.  Though some widescreen resolutions aren't 
> supported by some graphics cards' VESA BIOSes, sadly.

actually, most of them are. I happily run with vesafb 1440x900x16 laptop
display (vga=0x36a) and 1680x1050x32 monitor (kernel parameter  vga=0x369 )
I had a tool that detects all VESA modes your card supports, but somehow
can't recall what was its name.


> 
> Another solution is to change the kernel font (in the kernel 
> configuration, somewhere in the console framebuffer settings) and 
> console font (/etc/conf.d/consolefont) since the kernel font will be 
> replaced after the kernel has booted an init is run.



--
Dmitri Pogosyan            Department of Physics
Professor                  University of Alberta
tel 1-780-492-2150         11322 - 89 Avenue
fax 1-780-492-0714         Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, CANADA

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: I took the plunge with kde

[Dmitri Pogosyan]

> On 09/05/2009 02:43 PM, Paul Stear wrote:
> > By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up screen?
> 
> What monitor do you have?  If it's a TFT, use its native resolution in 
> the kernel parameters.  Though some widescreen resolutions aren't 
> supported by some graphics cards' VESA BIOSes, sadly.

Actually, most of them are, but may have non-standard codes.
I run laptop 1440x900x16 (vga=0x36a) and desktop monitor at 1680x1050x32
(vga=0x369). 

vbespy from the bottom of 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions

allows the detection of supported VESA modes on your card.

Be careful to convert VESA mode codes reported by vbespy to kernel codes
that vga= parameter takes.   Transformation is to add 512, and, optionally
convert to hex.

i.e for me vbespy reports 1680x1050 (8,8,8) vesa mode as 361 (decimal). Kernel
mode is 361+512=873=0x369 in hex


> 
> Another solution is to change the kernel font (in the kernel 
> configuration, somewhere in the console framebuffer settings) and 
> console font (/etc/conf.d/consolefont) since the kernel font will be 
> replaced after the kernel has booted an init is run.



--
Dmitri Pogosyan            Department of Physics
Professor                  University of Alberta
tel 1-780-492-2150         11322 - 89 Avenue
fax 1-780-492-0714         Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, CANADA

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: I took the plunge with kde

[Dmitri Pogosyan]

Sorry guys for duplicated messages, something is off in my mailer.

The tool to find the VESA codes for the modes your card supports
is vbespy from the bottom of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions

run it as

./vbetest 2> /dev/null

Note that the codes for non-standard VESA modes can vary from card to card.
For example on my laptop mode 361 is 1440x900x8, while on desktop 
the same code refers to 1680x1050x32.

You need to convert the VESA codes vbetest reports to kernel codes passed
as vga=.   The rule is to add 512 and optionally convert to hex.

i.e 361+512=873 (decimal)=0x369 hex


> > On 09/05/2009 02:43 PM, Paul Stear wrote:
> > > By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up
screen?
> > 
> > What monitor do you have?  If it's a TFT, use its native resolution in 
> > the kernel parameters.  Though some widescreen resolutions aren't 
> > supported by some graphics cards' VESA BIOSes, sadly.
> 
> actually, most of them are. I happily run with vesafb 1440x900x16 laptop
> display (vga=0x36a) and 1680x1050x32 monitor (kernel parameter  vga=0x369 )
> I had a tool that detects all VESA modes your card supports, but somehow
> can't recall what was its name.
> 
> > 
> > Another solution is to change the kernel font (in the kernel 
> > configuration, somewhere in the console framebuffer settings) and 
> > console font (/etc/conf.d/consolefont) since the kernel font will be 
> > replaced after the kernel has booted an init is run.
> 
> --
> Dmitri Pogosyan            Department of Physics
> Professor                  University of Alberta
> tel 1-780-492-2150         11322 - 89 Avenue
> fax 1-780-492-0714         Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, CANADA



--
Dmitri Pogosyan            Department of Physics
Professor                  University of Alberta
tel 1-780-492-2150         11322 - 89 Avenue
fax 1-780-492-0714         Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, CANADA

Re: [gentoo-amd64] I took the plunge with kde

[Anders Lövgren]

On Saturdayen den 5 September 2009 16.54.14 Paul Stear wrote:
> On Saturday 05 Sep 2009 14:51:43 Anders Lövgren wrote:
> > On Saturdayen den 5 September 2009 13.43.19 Paul Stear wrote:
> > > Well I now have kde 4.3.1 installed and apart from a few issues the
> > > update from 3.5.10 went well.
> > >
> > > ***Well done***  to all the developers who have brought kde this far. I
> > > just need to get use to working slightly different now <grin>.
> > >
> > > By the way does anybody know how to use a smaller font for the boot up
> > > screen?
> >
> > Try append something like 'vga=791 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1280x800-16'
> > to your kernel parameters in grub.conf
>
> <snip>
> Thanks Anders but it didn't work, I just had a blank screen but the machine
> did boot and gave me the kde loggin.
> Paul

Try setting the video parameter to the native resolution for your monitor. The 
vga value to use can be found in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt, 
using the best matching value seems to be sufficient.

You have to experiment a bit at the grub boot prompt, and for some graphic 
card/display combinations the VESA mode is not going to work at all.

// Anders