f8t1 LiveCD " vga=..." boot loader parameter

[Chuck Ebbert]

On 09/05/2007 08:52 AM, Nelson Strother wrote:
>   Please help me understand if we have a bug, or a design change (if so,
> where is the documentation?).
> 
>   The f8t1 LiveCD responds to an attempt to use the boot loader parameter
> vga=0x799 (via using the [TAB] key on the initial boot choice screen
> to edit the "Run from image" entry to add this parameter to the end of
> the:
> 
>   vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img  ro quiet
> root=CDLABEL=Fedora-8-Test-1-Live-i686 rootfstype=iso9660 liveimg
> 
> line) with:
> - - -
> Undefined video mode number 799
> Press <ENTER> to see video modes available, <SPACE> to continue, or wait 30 sec
> [<ENTER> displays something similar to: ]
> Mode:   COLS x ROWS
> 0 0F00   80 x 25 VGA
> 1 0F01   80 x 50 VGA
> 2 0F02   80 x 43 VGA
> 3 0F03   80 x 28 VGA
> 4 0F05   80 x 30 VGA
> 5 0F06   80 x 39 VGA
> 6 0F07   80 x 60 VGA
> [... selecting a choice to scan for additional modes merely made the
>  screen flash for a couple of minutes, but no additional choices were
>  displayed]
> - - -
> 
>   Selecting one of the scrunched modes (e.g. 6) does pack more
> characters on the screen ... for a while;  but by the time the boot
> messages were into the "SELinux ..." group, just before the
> "Interactive Startup" message, this VGA choice had evaporated
> and the usual smaller number of characters were being displayed
> on the screen

Yeah, the startup scripts very "helpfully" load a default font that
destroys the compressed text mode selected at boot time. On a normal
system, just rename the fonts directory to work around that problem.
Then save the console font from bootup and make that the new default
(and restore the directory name.)

>   I appreciate the feedback, as that is better than the silent
> failures to change video modes I have witnessed with other recent
> Fedora media.  But the choice of modes shown is quite different
> from those shown on e.g.:
>     http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora7/FAQ#head-1d333d02c2c2e2f3b06d18ce92d41dcbba823d59
> and other places VESA video modes (or VGA codes) are documented.
> 
>   Bugzilla time?  Or do others with different hardware find more
> constructive behavior from attempts to use this boot loader parameter
> vga=... ?

There were bugs in the video mode detection in the test1 kernel. Try test2
and if that doesn't work file a bug.