Changing Font Size of Console/Terminal/TTY

[iposner]

I've got a great big monitor - but during and after boot, the font size is the same as would be displayed on a VGA monitor (i.e. round about 100 characters wide (I couldn't be bothered to count them accurately)).

So the question is, how do I configure the default terminal font size to allow many more characters to fit on screen? I know with Linux this is a boot configuration, but where do I find the equivalent config file in BSD and how should I modify it?

 

[ProtoSD]

You generally start by not posting questions in the HowTo section of the forum....

 

[cyberjock]

Your issue is not with FreeNAS. It has to do with your TV and how it handles the text modes from your video card. My Sony TV did the same thing and you have to read the manual on your TV and change a setting on your TV to make it "better".... if it can.

 

[iposner]

I don't think you get what I mean - I have a 23" monitor capable of 1920x1200 resolution.

When I boot my Linux workstation, I'm able to change the default terminal font size (via a boot-time config file) so that I see many more characters on screen.

I want to do the same here.

Looking through the FreeBSD documentation I found the vidcontrol command which allows you to do what I want.

Running vidcontrol -i mode gives a list of supported video modes by my card.

The biggest resolutions I can see are 640x480x4 (what's the 4? Colour depth?) and 80x60 (characters/lines).

But when I try and set them I either get "invalid argument" or nothing happens at all.

 

[cyberjock]

I don't have a good answer. I try not to mess with stuff in FreeBSD that "works". In the past I've had problems with changing text modes and some programs don't play nice when you don't stick to the default mode so the thought never even crossed my mind to change the video mode. From my experience I just consider it a bad idea.

 

[titan_rw]

Why would you need to?

Generally, I would think, hooking up a monitor to freenas would never be needed, unless your having hardware problems preventing access through ssh.

Can't you just change the terminal size / font size, whatever, in your ssh program? Putty will let you use any sized font, and any size window you want. I'm not familiar with ssh clients on other os's, so I have no suggestions there.

 

[iposner]

Because I have a KVM switch attached directly to my FreeNas.

 

[cyberjock]

Because I have a KVM switch attached directly to my FreeNas.

I'm not sure if I call that a "good reason to connect to FreeNAS locally". I do 99% of everything I do to FreeNAS from the GUI or from an SSH connection. My monitor is attached to FreeNAS, but hasn't been turned on in weeks.

 

[iposner]

I'm not sure if I call that a "good reason to connect to FreeNAS locally". I do 99% of everything I do to FreeNAS from the GUI or from an SSH connection. My monitor is attached to FreeNAS, but hasn't been turned on in weeks.

I'm not asking for your approval. My FreeNAS sits on my desk alongside my other computers, so I hit a keyboard switch combo and I'm on the box. One less service to run. And it will ALWAYS work.

I'm asking how to do something that can be done fairly easily on Linux and should be equally easy to do on BSD.

 

[apatheticsheep]

In FreeBSD (as well as linux) the console video modes are and optional kernel feature. In highly optimized distributions like FreeNAS and pFsense it is not likely that the particular option to enable a large variety of video modes will be enabled since the system is intended to be run headless.
While this may not be the answer you are looking for - i believe it is slightly more helpful than those previously offered.

here is a link that describes the kernel options necessary to enable video modes.
http://www.freebsdwiki.net/index.php/High_Resolution_Console
I am not certain whether or not the freenas kernel is compiled with the required option.

Why do people on internet forums think that "don't do that" is a reasonable answer to someone's question regarding how to do exactly "THAT"?

 

[dlavigne]

Please create a feature request at bugs.freenas.org and post the issue number here.

 

[cyberjock]

Why do people on internet forums think that "don't do that" is a reasonable answer to someone's question regarding how to do exactly "THAT"?

I don't know? Why do people that have been a member for less than 4 hours think they can show up and that their opinion of an answer from someone that has over 7500 posts under their belt actually matters?

FreeNAS does cool stuff in the background that you don't understand unless you've been here a while. When you start tweaking things you risk breaking far more than you realize. Generally, if you are doing things from the CLI you are walking on thin ice. Since your very important and precious data is on the server, would you stick your server out on thin ice? I didn't think so...


You also just resurrected a thread from May 2013. As such, I am going to lock this thread.