Linux Console Modes (80×25 – really?)

aaron — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:35:04 +0000

I grew up using DOS, starting with DOS 2 something. I had a father that never stuck with the default settings, which included modifying the command prompt design/colors and the screen text dimensions of the DOS window. The default was 80 characters or columns wide with 25 lines or rows high, or 80×25. It seems this is STILL the default setting – I guess old school video modes stick around for quite some time. Regardless, 80×25 does not work for me in Linux – I have to “less” everything to be able to work with the help files, et cetera.

VGA Mode

For those DOS’ers, do you remember “mode 80″ or “mode 40″? If you know of a quick command for Linux consoles let me know … otherwise, you can use the tip below to modify your screen resolution.

/boot/grub/menu.lst

The key to changing the screen mode / screen resolution is to modify the menu.lst file and add the vga=[mode #] some where in the kernel call line – or at the end of it. After searching the Internet for some time, I compiled a list here of many of the vga modes available:

VGA MODE          MODE#
80x25              3840
80x50              3841
80x43              3842
80x28              3843
80x30              3845
80x34              3846
80x60              3847
320x200x8bit        816
320x200x16bit       782
320x200x32bit       783
320x240x8bit        820
320x240x16bit       821
320x240x32bit       822
640x480x8bit        769
640x480x16bit       785
640x480x32bit       786
800x600x8bit        771
800x600x16bit       788
800x600x32bit       789
1024x768x8bit       773
1024x768x16bit      791
1024x768x32bit      792
1280x800x8bit       864
1280x800x32bit      865
1440x900x8bit       868
1440x900x32bit      869

On my Ubuntu Server, the kernel line was:

kernel         /vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-server root=/dev/mapper/ubuntuserver-root ro quiet splash

and I added vga=792 to the end of it:

kernel         /vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-server root=/dev/mapper/ubuntuserver-root ro quiet splash vga=792

I’m out…

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Linux Console Modes (80×25 – really?)