Want to change console resolution

[Mike Price]

I would like to change my console resolution. I looked for a boot option for this in "The Minix Book" and in the man pages but it doesn't appear there one to accomplish this. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks,

Mike P.

[Erik van der Kouwe]

Hi,

I don't know of any, but if you run X you should be able to make a
bigger xterm window. Another way is to open an SSH session to your
MINIX from another computer.

With kind regards,
Erik

[Antoine Leca]

Yes, assuming VGA BIOS support.
'Man monitor' have the fine words, but the basic idea is to change VGA
mode with 'console=YXXX' at monitor prompt (hit Esc before starting
Minix); after that 'boot' will start Minix.

Before trying, you have to learn how to get back to the monitor prompt:
since if the new mode does not work, you will have to do it blindly,
without screen echo! Wait the needed time for Minix to boot until login,
then log in as root, password, and use halt to be back at monitor
prompt. As I said, you should be able to do that successfully without
looking at the screen!

About the values, 8003 works everywhere and gives you 80x50; A003 works
often and gives you 80x60; 109 (resp. 10b, 10c) are often available
(except low-end, recent, integrated graphics) and give 132x25 (resp.
132x50, 132x60.)

Antoine

[Erik van der Kouwe]

Hi,

> Before trying, you have to learn how to get back to the monitor prompt:
> since if the new mode does not work, you will have to do it blindly,
> without screen echo! Wait the needed time for Minix to boot until login,
> then log in as root, password, and use halt to be back at monitor
> prompt. As I said, you should be able to do that successfully without
> looking at the screen!

CTRL+ALT+DEL also achieves this.

With kind regards,
Erik

[Mike Price]

Thanks for the info both of you. I added X last night and that essentially gives me what I want. I had tried working over SSH but unfortunately I lose network connectivity due to a known issue with the Lance driver.

Having said that I still want to change my resolution so I will have a look at the monitor man page.

Thanks again!

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[Evgeniy Ivanov]

Hi,

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 7:28 PM, Mike Price <idfl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the info both of you. I added X last night and that essentially gives me what I want. I had tried working over SSH but unfortunately I lose network connectivity due to a known issue with the Lance driver.

AFAIR it was fixed in recent trunk.

--
Evgeniy Ivanov

[Mike Price]

Wonderful!

That brings up a whole new problem which I have been struggling with for the last couple of days.

I followed the "Tracking Current" wiki however I run into a problem of either incorrect config files (missing a passwd entry for 'service') or missing config files (system.conf <-- I think this was it) in /etc. I compared /usr/src/etc and /etc but didn't find any differences even thought he errors I was getting indicate that there are. Do you have any suggestions?

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[Evgeniy Ivanov]

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Mike Price <idfl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wonderful!

That brings up a whole new problem which I have been struggling with for the last couple of days.

I followed the "Tracking Current" wiki however I run into a problem of either incorrect config files (missing a passwd entry for 'service') or missing config files (system.conf <-- I think this was it) in /etc. I compared /usr/src/etc and /etc but didn't find any differences even thought he errors I was getting indicate that there are. Do you have any suggestions?

According docs/updating:
        /etc/drivers.conf has been renamed to /etc/system.conf.
        user "service" has been added to password file /etc/passwd.

If you didn't make any change to /etc/drivers.conf you can take system.conf from repository. Otherwise simple move file and rename "driver" sections to "service".

--
Evgeniy Ivanov

[Mike Price]

Thanks... once again Evgeniy, for both the info and the source. I will be sure to consult docs/updating in the future.

--
Evgeniy Ivanov

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[Antoine Leca]

Mike Price wrote:
> I followed the "Tracking Current" wiki however I run into a problem of
> either incorrect config files (missing a passwd entry for 'service') or
> missing config files (system.conf <-- I think this was it) in /etc. I
> compared /usr/src/etc and /etc but didn't find any differences even thought
> he errors I was getting indicate that there are. Do you have any
> suggestions?

[ Just a suggestion, nothing actually tested for real. ]

Besides being on /etc as you see it (i.e. in the root file systems),
system.conf (old drivers.conf) and passwd are also stored in the ramdisk
embedded in the OS image (inside memory, look after file proto in
src/drivers/memory/ramdisk.)
My reading of the Makefile indicates that it should take care of that
and use the newest versions from your src tree, however it is possible
(for example, if you copied the new version of passwd keeping its commit
date) that the new version could be "insufficiently" new with respect to
the ramdisk image and hence fails to trigger a re-building of the
'memory' driver (classical problem of recursive makefiles): as a result
your OS image picked the previous version of passwd, and consequently
Minix will fail to complete loading (user service missing from passwd).

Cure is pretty easy: go to src/drivers/memory, 'make clean', then go
back to tools and make another image (should rebuild ramdisk and
memory), install it and test.

Antoine

[Mike Price]

Will do.

[Mike Price]

I checked out the latest trunk which included the modifed passwd file and the new system.conf file. I could be crazy but I swear these two files were not included in the trunk I checked out yesterday.

Anyway, one "make world" and a quick cp of these two files to /etc fixed my issue.

I really appreciate the responsiveness and willingness of the group.

Thanks!

[Tomas Hruby]

On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 11:47:14AM -0700, Mike Price wrote:
> I checked out the latest trunk which included the modifed passwd file and
> the new system.conf file. I could be crazy but I swear these two files were
> not included in the trunk I checked out yesterday.

They are in the trunk since before xmas ;-)

Cheers, T.

[Mike Price]

I'm crazy then ;-)

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[Mike Price]