According to the documentation, use of the vga=
kernel parameter is deprecated as of GRUB2. The fact that some newer kernels don't seem to support it anymore on certain adapters is of no concern as the graphics card I have is seven to eight years old.
The problem now is that I would like to use a higher resolution text mode, such as 80×50 instead of the default 80×25 characters. Apparently all graphics (VBE/VESA) modes are out of the question for this graphics card (ATI Rage XL) – the list of available modes only shows 0
through 6
. 6
is 80x60
but looks horrible, so I'd like to go with 1
(80×50).
I've seen 80×50 and 80×60 working after getting the list of available modes whenever the default mode wasn't supported (with the default commented out GRUB_TERMINAL=console
) and I was prompted to choose.
How can I set the mode, if I'm not supposed to set it on the kernel command line and every use of GRUB_GFXMODE
(with or without preloading vbe
module) and GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
fails? Fails as in: screen stays blank because it's an invalid graphics mode for the card I have in this machine?
My idea would be to pass nomodeset
to the kernel still, but the boot loader would then still have to set the graphics mode. And I can't see any options other than the vga=
kernel parameter for doing that.
Note: the vbetest
and videotest
commands on the GRUB2 console will blank the screen and then the screen switches to sleep mode after claiming there is no video input. vbeinfo
and videoinfo
show a few available modes other than the above mentioned, but there is no mentioning of where this should be set. Also, when passing vga=1
(without nomodeset
) on the kernel command line, I see a very brief warning about it being deprecated, but it's too long to read completely – and the output doesn't appear in dmesg
.
Best Answer
Maybe it is deprecated by grub2, however it should still work and must continue to work. It works for me using grub2 and debian wheezy as well as rhel7.3 (confirmed 01-2017). Also according to the official documentation it is not deprecated:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/x86/boot.txt
And https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/svga.txt will tell you all you need to know. Below a few examples of resolutions I commonly use:
To get a list of supported modes use:
For a 1024×768x24 screen which I found works on pretty much all systems and monitors I use (this time in decimal and in hex):