.\" .\" vidcontrol - a utility for manipulating the syscons video driver .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" @(#)vidcontrol.1 .\" $FreeBSD$ .\" .Dd June 30, 1999 .Dt VIDCONTROL 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm vidcontrol .Nd a utility for manipulating the syscons console driver. .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl b Ar color .Op Fl c Ar appearance .Op Fl d .Op Fl f Ar size Ar file .Op Fl i Cm adapter | mode .Op Fl l Ar screen_map .Op Fl L .Op Fl M Ar char .Op Fl m Cm on | off .Op Fl r Ar foreground Ar background .Op Fl s Ar number .Op Fl t Ar N | Cm off .Op Fl x .Op Ar mode .Op Ar foreground Op Ar background .Op Cm show .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm command is used to set various options for the .Xr syscons 4 console driver, such as video mode, colors, cursor shape, screen output map, font and screen saver timeout. .Pp The following command line options are supported: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Ar mode Select a new video mode. The modes currently recognized are: .Ar 80x25 , .Ar 80x30 , .Ar 80x43 , .Ar 80x50 , .Ar 80x60 , .Ar 132x25 , .Ar 132x30 , .Ar 132x43 , .Ar 132x50 , .Ar 132x60 , .Ar VGA_40x25 , .Ar VGA_80x25 , .Ar VGA_80x30 , .Ar VGA_80x50 , .Ar VGA_80x60 , .Ar EGA_80x25 , .Ar EGA_80x43 , .Ar VESA_132x25 , .Ar VESA_132x43 , .Ar VESA_132x50 , .Ar VESA_132x60 . .\"The graphic mode .\".Ar VGA_320x200 .\"and The raster text mode .Ar VESA_800x600 can also be chosen. See .Sx Video Mode Support below. .It Ar foreground Op Ar background Change colors when displaying text. Specify the foreground color (e.g. .Dq vidcontrol white ) , or both a foreground and background colors (e.g. .Dq vidcontrol yellow blue ) . Use the .Cm show command below to see available colors. .It Cm show See the supported colors on a given platform. .It Fl r Ar foreground background Change reverse mode colors to .Ar foreground and .Ar background . .It Fl b Ar color Set border color to .Ar color . This option may not be always supported by the video driver. .It Fl c Cm normal | blink | destructive Change the cursor appearance. The cursor is either an inverting block .Pq Cm normal that eventually can .Cm blink . Or it can be like the old hardware cursor .Pq Cm destructive . The latter is actually a simulation. .It Fl d Print out current output screen map. .It Fl l Ar screen_map Install screen output map file from .Ar screen_map . See also .Xr syscons 4 . .It Fl L Install default screen output map. .It Fl i Cm adapter Shows info about the current video adapter. .It Fl i Cm mode Shows the possible video modes with the current video hardware. .It Fl M Ar char Sets the base character used to render the mouse pointer to .Ar char . .It Fl m Cm on | off Switch the mouse pointer .Cm on or .Cm off . Used together with the .Xr moused 8 daemon for text mode cut & paste functionality. .It Fl f Ar size Ar file Load font .Ar file for .Ar size (currently, only .Cm 8x8 , .Cm 8x14 or .Cm 8x16 ) . The font file can be either uuencoded or in raw binary format. You can also use the menu-driven .Xr vidfont 1 command to load the font of your choice. .Pp Note that older video cards, such as MDA and CGA, do not support software font. See also .Sx Video Mode Support and .Sx EXAMPLES below and the man page for .Xr syscons 4 . .It Fl s Ar number Set the current vty to .Ar number . .It Fl t Ar N | Cm off Set the screensaver timeout to .Ar N seconds, or turns it .Cm off . .It Fl x Use hexadecimal digits for output. .El .Ss Video Mode Support Note that not all modes listed above may be supported by the video hardware. You can verify which mode is supported by the video hardware, using the .Fl i Cm mode option. .Pp The VESA BIOS support must be linked to the kernel or loaded as a KLD module if you wish to use VESA video modes or 132 column modes .Pq see Xr vga 4 . .Pp Video modes other than 25 and 30 line modes may require specific size of font. Use .Fl f option above to load a font file to the kernel. If the required size of font has not been loaded to the kernel, .Nm will fail if the user attempts to set a new video mode. .Pp .Bl -column "25 line modes" "8x16 (VGA), 8x14 (EGA)" -compact .Li Sy Modes Ta Sy Font size .Li 25 line modes Ta 8x16 (VGA), 8x14 (EGA) .Li 30 line modes Ta 8x16 .Li 43 line modes Ta 8x8 .Li 50 line modes Ta 8x8 .Li 60 line modes Ta 8x8 .El .Pp It is better to always load all three sizes (8x8, 8x14 and 8x16) of the same font. .Pp You may set variables in .Pa /etc/rc.conf or .Pa /etc/rc.conf.local so that desired font files will be automatically loaded when the system starts up. See below. .Pp If you want to use the raster text mode .Ar VESA_800x600 , you need to recomile your kernel with the .Em SC_PIXEL_MODE option. See .Xr syscons 4 for more details on this kernel option. .Sh VIDEO OUTPUT CONFIGURATION .Ss Boot Time Configuration You may set the following variables in .Pa /etc/rc.conf or .Pa /etc/rc.conf.local in order to configure the video output at boot time. .Pp .Bl -tag -width foo_bar_var -compact .It Ar blanktime Sets the timeout value for the .Fl t option. .It Ar font8x16 , font8x14 , font8x8 Specifies font files for the .Fl f option. .It Ar scrnmap Specifies a screen output map file for the .Fl l option. .El .Pp See .Xr rc.conf 5 for more details. .Ss Driver Configuration The video card driver may let you change default configuration options, such as the default font, so that you do not need to set up the options at boot time. See video card driver manuals, .Pq e.g. Xr vga 4 for details. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width /usr/share/syscons/scrnmaps/foo-bar -compact .It Pa /usr/share/syscons/fonts/* font files. .It Pa /usr/share/syscons/scrnmaps/* screen output map files. .El .Sh EXAMPLES If you want to load .Pa /usr/share/syscons/fonts/iso-8x16.fnt to the kernel, run .Nm as: .Pp .Dl vidcontrol -f 8x16 /usr/share/syscons/fonts/iso-8x16.fnt .Pp So long as the font file is in .Pa /usr/share/syscons/fonts , you may abbreviate the file name as .Pa iso-8x16 : .Pp .Dl vidcontrol -f 8x16 iso-8x16 .Pp Likewise, you can also abbreviate the screen output map file name for the .Fl l option if the file is found in .Pa /usr/share/syscons/scrnmaps . .Pp .Dl vidcontrol -l iso-8859-1_to_cp437 .Pp The above command will load .Pa /usr/share/syscons/scrnmaps/iso-8859-1_to_cp437.scm . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr kbdcontrol 1 , .Xr vidfont 1 , .Xr keyboard 4 , .Xr screen 4 , .Xr syscons 4 , .Xr vga 4 , .Xr rc.conf 5 , .Xr kldload 8 , .Xr moused 8 .Sh AUTHORS .An S\(/oren Schmidt Aq sos@FreeBSD.org