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RESIZECONS
!!!RESIZECONS
NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
BUGS
SEE ALSO
----
!!NAME


resizecons - change kernel idea of the console size
!!SYNOPSIS


__resizecons__ ''COLSxROWS''__
resizecons__ ''-lines'' __ROWS__
!!DESCRIPTION


The __resizecons__ command tries to change the videomode
of the console. There are several aspects to this: (a) the
kernel must know about it, (b) the hardware must know about
it, (c) user programs must know about it, (d) the console
font may have to be adapted.


(a) The kernel is told about the change using the ioctl
VT_RESIZE. This causes the kernel to reallocate console
screen memory for all virtual consoles, and might fail if
there is not enough memory. (In that case, try to
disallocate some virtual consoles first.) If this ioctl
succeeds, but a later step fails (e.g., because you do not
have root permissions), you may be left with a very messy
screen.


The most difficult part of this is (b), since it requires
detailed knowledge of the video card hardware, and the
setting of numerous registers. Only changing the number of
rows is slightly easier, and __resizecons__ will try to
do that itself, when given the ''-lines'' option.
(Probably, root permission will be required.) The command
__resizecons COLSxROWS__ will execute __restoretextmode
-r COLSxROWS__ (and hence requires that you have svgalib
installed). Here COLSxROWS is a file that was created
earlier by __restoretextmode -w COLSxROWS.__ Again,
either root permissions are required, or
restoretextmode(8) has to be suid root.


In order to deal with (c), __resizecons__ does a `__stty
rows ROWS cols COLS__' for each active console (in the
range tty0..tty15), and sends a SIGWINCH signal to
__selection__ if it finds the file
''/tmp/selection.pid''.


Finally, (d) is dealt with by executing a
consolechars(8) command. Most likely, the wrong font
is loaded, and you may want to call consolechars(8)
yourself afterwards.
!!BUGS


__resizecons__ does not work on all hardware. This
command used to be called __resize,__ but was renamed to
avoid conflict with another command with the same
name.
!!SEE ALSO


consolechars(8), stty(1), selection(1),
restoretextmode(8), disalloc(8).
----

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Last edited on Tuesday, June 4, 2002 12:31:17 am by "perry"

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