Bug 203114

Summary:	vt(1) only shows correct modesetting / resolution after quitting X (and returning to vty)
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	Tony Narlock <tony>
Component:	kern	Assignee:	freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status:	Open ---
Severity:	Affects Only Me	CC:	emaste
Priority:	---	Keywords:	vt
Version:	CURRENT
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description Tony Narlock 2015-09-15 02:41:25 UTC

When booting, the "font size" / resolution / modesetting is large and there isn't much space. When entering X and quitting X, (going back into terminal), the vty font-size is perfectly adjusted to the resolution. I'd like it to boot that way.

Is this behavior by design or a bug? What more information can I provide?

$ dmesg (snipped)

info: [drm] MSI enabled 1 message(s)
info: [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 1 (10.10.2010).
info: [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
drmn0: taking over the fictitious range 0xe0000000-0xf0000000
info: [drm] Enabling RC6 states: RC6 off, RC6p off, RC6pp off
info: [drm] Connector LVDS-1: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.LVDS-1
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
info: [drm] Connector VGA-1: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.VGA-1
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
info: [drm] Connector HDMI-A-1: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.HDMI-A-1
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
info: [drm] Connector DP-1: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.DP-1
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
info: [drm] Connector HDMI-A-2: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.HDMI-A-2
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
info: [drm] Connector HDMI-A-3: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.HDMI-A-3
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
info: [drm] Connector DP-2: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.DP-2
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
info: [drm] Connector DP-3: get mode from tunables:
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.DP-3
info: [drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
fbd0 on drmn0
VT: Replacing driver "vga" with new "fb".
info: [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730 for drmn0 on minor 0


$ freebsd-version -ku; uname -apKU                        
11.0-CURRENT
11.0-CURRENT
FreeBSD x230 11.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 11.0-CURRENT #4: Fri Sep 11 11:42:41 CDT 2015     root@x230:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/MYKERNEL  amd64 amd64 1100079 1100079

$ sysctl kern.vt   
kern.vt.splash_cpu_duration: 10
kern.vt.splash_cpu_style: 2
kern.vt.splash_ncpu: 0
kern.vt.splash_cpu: 0
kern.vt.kbd_panic: 0
kern.vt.kbd_debug: 1
kern.vt.kbd_reboot: 1
kern.vt.kbd_poweroff: 1
kern.vt.kbd_halt: 1
kern.vt.suspendswitch: 1
kern.vt.deadtimer: 15
kern.vt.debug: 0
kern.vt.enable_bell: 1
kern.vt.enable_altgr: 1

$ sysctl kern.vty
kern.vty: vt

Comment 1 Ed Maste freebsd_committer

2015-09-25 15:27:52 UTC

This is the expected behaviour when your system boots in VGA mode. In that case vt(4) starts as 640x480. Once your video driver loads it switches to the native screen resolution.

You can load the i915 driver from the command line to switch to the higher resolution, or try loading i915kms.ko from the loader.

Also if you boot via UEFI instead the vt_efifb driver will be used instead of the vt_vga driver, and will likely run at the native resolution.

I'll leave this PR open pending the creation of useful documentation on configuring this.