Font selection with i915

Font selection with i915

[Alan Stern]

When Fedora 12 loads i915 during initramfs probing on my system, the
driver automatically installs a tiny 160x64 font.  How can I prevent it
from doing this, or tell it to use a larger 80x25 font instead?

Is this documented anywhere?

In addition, are the error messages in the following dmesg log anything 
to be concerned about?  They appear during every boot:


[drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
i915 0000:00:02.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
i915 0000:00:02.0: setting latency timer to 64
fbcon: inteldrmfb (fb0) is primary device
render error detected, EIR: 0x00000010
[drm:i915_handle_error] *ERROR* EIR stuck: 0x00000010, masking
render error detected, EIR: 0x00000010
[drm] DAC-5: set mode 1280x1024 16
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 160x64
fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device
registered panic notifier
[drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0


Thanks,

Alan Stern

Re: Font selection with i915

[James Simmons]

> When Fedora 12 loads i915 during initramfs probing on my system, the
> driver automatically installs a tiny 160x64 font.  How can I prevent it
> from doing this, or tell it to use a larger 80x25 font instead?
> 
> Is this documented anywhere?

Not really. Here is how you enable larger fonts. Configure your kernel. Go
into the Graphics support menu. This the the menu that has the 
DRI/Framebuffer and backlight options. You will see a "Console display 
driver support" option. Select it and you will have a new menu. You will 
see the option "Select compiled-in fonts". Enable that and select the font 
you want. Most likely it will be the Sun 12x22 font. Build your kernel.

Their might be one more setup to do. Some distros like to load a console 
font at boot up. Depending on the distro if that is the case you will have 
to disable it.

> In addition, are the error messages in the following dmesg log anything 
> to be concerned about?  They appear during every boot:
> 
> 
> [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
> i915 0000:00:02.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
> i915 0000:00:02.0: setting latency timer to 64
> fbcon: inteldrmfb (fb0) is primary device
> render error detected, EIR: 0x00000010
> [drm:i915_handle_error] *ERROR* EIR stuck: 0x00000010, masking
> render error detected, EIR: 0x00000010
> [drm] DAC-5: set mode 1280x1024 16
> Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 160x64
> fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device
> registered panic notifier
> [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0

No idea here.

Re: Font selection with i915

[Alan Stern]

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010, James Simmons wrote:

> 
> > When Fedora 12 loads i915 during initramfs probing on my system, the
> > driver automatically installs a tiny 160x64 font.  How can I prevent it
> > from doing this, or tell it to use a larger 80x25 font instead?
> > 
> > Is this documented anywhere?
> 
> Not really. Here is how you enable larger fonts. Configure your kernel. Go
> into the Graphics support menu. This the the menu that has the 
> DRI/Framebuffer and backlight options. You will see a "Console display 
> driver support" option. Select it and you will have a new menu. You will 
> see the option "Select compiled-in fonts". Enable that and select the font 
> you want. Most likely it will be the Sun 12x22 font. Build your kernel.
> 
> Their might be one more setup to do. Some distros like to load a console 
> font at boot up. Depending on the distro if that is the case you will have 
> to disable it.

It turns out that preventing the mode switch is easier.  Finding it
took a certain amount of digging, but the "nomodeset" kernel parameter
prevents the console from leaving normal VGA mode.  If only it were
documented...

Alan Stern

Re: Font selection with i915

[Corbin Simpson]

FYI the legacy non-KMS path (nomodeset) is deprecated in kernel and
was recently dropped from the X driver. You should be able to use
fbset to change the resolution of your fbcon though.

~ C.

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Jan 2010, James Simmons wrote:
>
>>
>> > When Fedora 12 loads i915 during initramfs probing on my system, the
>> > driver automatically installs a tiny 160x64 font.  How can I prevent it
>> > from doing this, or tell it to use a larger 80x25 font instead?
>> >
>> > Is this documented anywhere?
>>
>> Not really. Here is how you enable larger fonts. Configure your kernel. Go
>> into the Graphics support menu. This the the menu that has the
>> DRI/Framebuffer and backlight options. You will see a "Console display
>> driver support" option. Select it and you will have a new menu. You will
>> see the option "Select compiled-in fonts". Enable that and select the font
>> you want. Most likely it will be the Sun 12x22 font. Build your kernel.
>>
>> Their might be one more setup to do. Some distros like to load a console
>> font at boot up. Depending on the distro if that is the case you will have
>> to disable it.
>
> It turns out that preventing the mode switch is easier.  Finding it
> took a certain amount of digging, but the "nomodeset" kernel parameter
> prevents the console from leaving normal VGA mode.  If only it were
> documented...
>
> Alan Stern
>
>
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-- 
Only fools are easily impressed by what is only
barely beyond their reach. ~ Unknown

Corbin Simpson
<MostAwesomeDude@gmail.com>

Re: Font selection with i915

[Alan Stern]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010, Corbin Simpson wrote:

> FYI the legacy non-KMS path (nomodeset) is deprecated in kernel and
> was recently dropped from the X driver. You should be able to use
> fbset to change the resolution of your fbcon though.

I tried fbset, and it was distinctly unsuccessful.  When I ran "fbset 
640x480-60", the general appearance of the screen did not change but 
all new text got squeezed into the upper-left corner in an unreadable 
form.

It's not clear what mode I should specify.  The output from "fbset" is 
rather unhelpful (I didn't save the exact output but this is close):

	mode: "1280x1024-0"
	D: 0 MHz H: 0 kHz V: 0 Hz
	geometry: 1280 1024 1280 1024 32
	timings: -1 0 0 0 0 0 0
	rgba: 8/16,8/8,8/0,0/0

Alan Stern

Re: Font selection with i915

[Tomas M.]

since 2.6.32 you can change the resolution with video=VGA-1:640x480 boot 
parameter and emulate the old behaviour.



On 01/20/2010 05:39 PM, Alan Stern wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Jan 2010, Corbin Simpson wrote:
>
>    
>> FYI the legacy non-KMS path (nomodeset) is deprecated in kernel and
>> was recently dropped from the X driver. You should be able to use
>> fbset to change the resolution of your fbcon though.
>>      
> I tried fbset, and it was distinctly unsuccessful.  When I ran "fbset
> 640x480-60", the general appearance of the screen did not change but
> all new text got squeezed into the upper-left corner in an unreadable
> form.
>
> It's not clear what mode I should specify.  The output from "fbset" is
> rather unhelpful (I didn't save the exact output but this is close):
>
> 	mode: "1280x1024-0"
> 	D: 0 MHz H: 0 kHz V: 0 Hz
> 	geometry: 1280 1024 1280 1024 32
> 	timings: -1 0 0 0 0 0 0
> 	rgba: 8/16,8/8,8/0,0/0
>
> Alan Stern
>
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>    

Re: Font selection with i915

[Alan Stern]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010, Tomas M. wrote:

> since 2.6.32 you can change the resolution with video=VGA-1:640x480 boot 
> parameter and emulate the old behaviour.

That works even with Fedora-12, which uses a 2.6.31-based kernel.  
Thanks.

Alan Stern