VGA(4) BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual VGA(4)NAME
vga, vesa — generic video card interface
SYNOPSIS
options VESA
options VESA_DEBUG=N
options VGA_ALT_SEQACCESS
options VGA_KEEP_POWERON_MODE
options VGA_NO_FONT_LOADING
options VGA_NO_MODE_CHANGE
options VGA_DEBUG=N
options VGA_WIDTH90
device vga0 at isa? port ?
DESCRIPTION
The vga driver is a generic video card driver which provides access to
video cards. This driver is required for the console driver syscons(4).
The console driver will call the vga driver to manipulate video hardware
(changing video modes, loading font, etc).
The vga driver supports the standard VGA video cards. In addition, the
driver can utilize the VESA BIOS Extension if the video card supports it.
VESA support can either be statically included in the kernel or can be
loaded as a separate module.
In order to statically link the VESA support into the kernel, the VESA
option (see below) must be defined in the kernel configuration file.
The vesa module can be dynamically loaded into the kernel using
kldload(8).
DRIVER CONFIGURATION
Kernel Configuration Options
The following kernel configuration options (see config(8)) can be used to
control the vga driver. These options provide compatibility with certain
VGA cards.
VGA_ALT_SEQACCESS You may want to try this option if the mouse
pointer is not drawn correctly or the font does
not seem to be loaded properly on the VGA card.
However, it may cause flicker on some systems.
VGA_DEBUG=N Set the VGA support debug level to N. The default
value is 0, which suppresses all debugging output.
A value of 2 gives maximum verbosity.
VGA_KEEP_POWERON_MODE This option keeps the initial mode's register set‐
tings for switching back to it from another mode.
VGA_WIDTH90 This option enables 90 column modes: 90x25, 90x30,
90x43, 90x50, 90x60. These modes are not always
supported by the video card and the display. It
is highly likely that LCD display cannot work with
these modes.
The following options will remove some features from the vga driver and
save kernel memory.
VGA_NO_FONT_LOADING This option removes font loading from the driver.
Note that if you use this option and still wish to
use the mouse on the console then you must also
use the SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE option. See
syscons(4).
VGA_NO_MODE_CHANGE This option prevents the driver from changing
video modes.
The following options add optional features to the driver.
VESA Add VESA BIOS Extension support to the driver. If
the VGA card has the VESA BIOS Extension 1.2 or
later, this option will utilize it to switch to
high resolution modes.
VESA_DEBUG=N Set the VESA support debug level to N. The
default value is 0, which suppresses all debugging
output. A value of 2 gives maximum verbosity.
EXAMPLES
Your kernel configuration should normally have:
device vga0 at isa? port ?
The following line should be included in the kernel configuration file in
order to enable the VESA BIOS Extension support.
options VESA
If you do not want VESA support included in the kernel, but want to use
occasionally, do not add the VESA option. And load the vesa module as
desired:
kldload vesa
SEE ALSOvgl(3), syscons(4), config(8), kldload(8), kldunload(8)STANDARDS
Apple, IBM, Motorola, "Common Hardware Reference Platform: I/O Device
Reference", Appendix A: VGA Programming Model, p. 195,
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/rs6000/technology/spec/chrp/.
Video Electronics Standards Association, VESA BIOS Extension (VBE).
HISTORY
The vga driver first appeared in FreeBSD 3.1.
AUTHORS
The vga driver was written by Søren Schmidt ⟨sos@FreeBSD.org⟩ and
Kazutaka Yokota ⟨yokota@FreeBSD.org⟩. This manual page was written by
Kazutaka Yokota.
BSD December 14, 2009 BSD
