Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Stefan Güls wrote:
> Newbie question:
> after gaining some hands-on linux experience with big distros (SuSE) I'm
> about setting up an old Pentium 100/24MB to fiddle around with Linux...
>
> Can anybody give me a quick hint how to change the default (text)-screen
> geometry from 80x25 to e.g. 80x34 (which looks indeed much more pleasant on
> this old S3 graphics card). Generally I'm willing to read f.. manuals, but
> this would be easier with a nice console in front of me....
>
Are you using Basiclinux and booting it with loadlin?  If so, you could
just add the phrase "vga=ask" to the end of your loadlin line and get a
menu each time you boot asking what geometry you'd like to use.  I think
the same can be done by adding such a line to Lilo, if you use that, but
where to add it I don't know, since I never tried this with Lilo.  If you
don't want a menu, but just want a specific set geometry, I gather there's
a way to do that as well, though I'll have to let someone else indicate
what it is, since I don't know for sure.

James