How-To Customize Console

Alexey Eremenko "Technologov"

$Revision: 03 $

$Date: 2007-02-02 $

About

The Linux Console is a very powerfool tool, but it requires some knowledge and experience to get used to.

You must destinct between a real console, that runs in full-screen mode, from a console simulation that runs under X Window System (xterm or KDE Konsole). This article is going to describe customization of a real console.

You may want to work with openSUSE, but without graphical user interface, in pure text-mode. The reasons to switch to text-mode may differ: from nostalgic, to learning Linux to save some CPU cycles and RAM.

Invoking

To switch there, you can use: “Ctrl+Alt+F1...F6” for six different console sessions, available by default. To go back to GUI mode use: “Ctrl+Alt+F7”.

Adding Mouse

Look at: “How-To Enable Mouse in Console (with gpm)” in this book.

Customizing Resolution

On the real console, you can change resolution via VGA BIOS modes. Since BIOS is only accessible from 16-bit mode, it must be set up before the Linux kernel loads, on the boot loader stage.

localhost:/ # cat /boot/grub/menu.lst | grep kernel
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/hdd3 vga=0x317    resume=/dev/hdd11 splash=silent showopts
... 
output omitted

As you see here, after the kernel file, the kernel parameter starts. You see something like: “vga=0x317” which is the VGA mode.

Below you see a table of different VGA modes, so you can modify the file according to your taste:

FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#          | 640x480    800x600    1024x768   1280x1024
#      ----+--------------------------------------------
#      256 | 0x301=769  0x303=771  0x305=773   0x307=775
#      32K | 0x310=784  0x313=787  0x316=790   0x319=793
#      64K | 0x311=785  0x314=788  0x317=791   0x31A=794
#      16M | 0x312=786  0x315=789  0x318=792   0x31B=795
#     +-------------------------------------------------+

Also you can remove this parameter or make it “vga=0” so it will start like a real DOS mode, with 80x25 character resolution. Alternatively set it to: “vga=ask” so the computer will ask you every time on boot which VGA mode to use.

Navigation

To scroll console up/down use: “Shift+Page Up” and “Shift+Page Down”.

WARNING: This will work as long as you are on the same console. If you switch, your scrolling history will be lost.

For More Information

For Customizing Resolution you can read the file: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/svga.txt (requires Linux kernel source code to be installed)