How can I change my console resolution to 1280x800? (Using fglrx)

[Glycerin]

I'm using Fedora 10 x86_64 with an ATI Radeon Mobility x1400 video card. Before installing fglrx & compiz, the text console (while booting up) was shown at 1280x800 resolution (laptop widescreen). After installing fglrx & compiz the console would only show up as 640x480 resolution. My resolution in X starts as 1280x800 without any problem.

I realize that you can use vga=xxx as a kernel argument but this only works with NON-widescreen resolutions. I require that it be set to a widescreen resolution like it was before the fglrx & compiz installation.

Is it possible? How can I do it? I used this tutorial to get fglrx & compiz working: Howto for fglrx (Ati driver) and Compiz-fusion

[Glycerin]

I still haven't figured this out. Any help would be appreciated.

[manpaz]

You can edit /etc/grub.conf and add vga=795, that could be the approximated size of what you want, the following table show some possible values. Hope this helps.

Color depth      | 640x480  800x600  1024x768 1280x1024
-----------------+-------------------------------------
256        (8bit)|  769      771       773      775
32000     (15bit)|  784      787       790      793
65000     (16bit)|  785      788       791      794
16.7 Mill.(24bit)|  786      789       792      795

[Glycerin]

Thanks for the reply manpaz but that resolution isn't supported by my monitor (too high) and the lower ones all get stretched and look ugly.

[RupertPupkin]

Did you try vga=864? That gives a 1280x800 console on many laptops.

[Glycerin]

RupertPupkin, yes I tried setting vga=864 but it gives this error when booting:

Undefined video number: 360

I also tried setting vga=0x864 and it gives this error:

Undefined video number: 864

[manpaz]

Well, 1024x768 also looks pretty good in almost any hardware (vga=792).

[RupertPupkin]

You can use vbetest to see what VESA graphics modes your video card is capable of. Install it (yum install vbetest), then just run the command vbetest. You should see a list of resolutions, with the mode in square brackets. Add 512 to the number in brackets to get the number for vga=<number>.

If 1280x800 does not appear in that list, or if the listed modes don't work, then you will probably have to use the radeonfb module, or compile it into your kernel. In the latter case, you would use it as a kernel option in grub. For example, for my Radeon I use a 1024x768 console framebuffer at 76Hz in 32-bit color like this:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27 ro root=/dev/sda1 video=radeonfb:1024x768-32@76

If you use radeonfb as a module, then you'd have to use the fbset command (part of the fbset package). It may take some experimenting to get the right combination of resolution, vertical frequency and color depth.

[Glycerin]

Great suggestion RupertPupkin but I don't think it can work that way. Here's what I did:

Ran vbetest - I had to install it on an i686 Live CD because it won't run on X86_64 (vm86 failure).
vbetest did NOT return my native 1280x800 resolution even though it did have a bunch of crazy ones listed.

Changed the video= argument in grub.conf to

video=radeonfb:1024x768-32@60

and others including 1280x800-32@60 which I added a statement for in /etc/fb.modes but none of them had any effect on the resolution in the console (frame buffer). I tried with and without the "nomodeset" option as well.


Used this command:

grep radeonfb /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

which returned:

blacklist radeonfb

Used this command:

grep blacklist /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-radeon

which returned:

#blacklist required for proprietary fglrx driver
blacklist radeon
blacklist radeonfb
blacklist drm

Since it was blacklisted (by fglrx) I didn't unblacklist it assuming it would cause some major problem. If I understand this correctly, according to this message there needs to be a workaround created in order to use radeonfb as the framebuffer and switch to fglrx when in X. That workaround does not yet exist as far as I can tell so I may be stuck with a stretched resolution whenever I'm not in X.

[cayspekko]

I'm having the same problem, installed fglrx and now the console resolution is tiny, resolution works fine in X. If I disable fglrx and go back to radeon, console resolution works.