1VBETOOL(1) User Commands VBETOOL(1)
2
6 vbetool - run real-mode video BIOS code to alter hardware state
7
10 vbetool [[vbestate save|restore]|[vbemode set|get]|[vgamode]|[dpms
11 on|off|standby|suspend|reduced]|[post [romfile]]|[vgastate
12 on|off]|[vbefp panelid|panelsize|getbrightness|setbrightness|invert]]
13
16 vbetool uses lrmi in order to run code from the video BIOS. Currently,
17 it is able to alter DPMS states, save/restore video card state and
18 attempt to initialize the video card from scratch.
19
22 vbetool takes the following options:
23 vbestate
25 vbetool will use the VESA 0x4f0f extensions to save or restore
26 hardware state. This will be sent to or read from stdin. This
27 information is highly hardware specific - do not attempt to
28 restore state saved from a different machine. This command will
29 not work unless you are at a text console, as it interferes
30 badly with X.
31 dpms vbetool will use the VESA 0x4f10 extensions to alter the power
34 management state of your screen. "On", "off", "standby", "sus‐
35 pend" and "reduced" are acceptable further options and determine
36 which state will be activated.
37 vbemode
40 vbetool will get or set the current VESA mode. "get" will return
41 the current mode number on stdout - "set" will set the mode to
42 the next argument.
43 vgamode
46 vbetool will set the legacy VGA mode to the following numeric
47 argument.
48 post vbetool will attempt to run BIOS code located at c000:0003. This
51 is the code run by the system BIOS at boot in order to intialise
52 the video hardware. Note that on some machines (especially lap‐
53 tops), not all of this code is present after system boot - as a
54 result, executing this command may result in undefined behav‐
55 iour. This command must be run from a text console, as it will
56 otherwise interfere with the operation of X. This command takes
57 an optional argument which is the location of a file containing
58 a ROM image. If provided, this image will be mapped to the c000
59 segment and used instead of the system's video BIOS.
60 vgastate
63 vbetool will enable or disable the current video card. On most
64 hardware, disabling will cause the hardware to stop responding
65 until it is reenabled. You probably don't want to do this if
66 you're using a framebuffer.
67 vbefp vbetool will execute a VESA flat panel interface call.
70 panelid will provide information about the panel
72 panelsize will provide the size of the panel
74 getbrightness will provide the current screen brightness as an
76 integer
77 setbrightness accepts an integer as an argument and will set the
79 screen brightness to that
80 invert will invert the colours of the screen
82
85 Switching dpms modes may interact badly with X on some systems.
86 The vbestate command may behave in strange ways.
88 The post command may result in the execution of arbitrary code that
90 happens to be lying around in the area where chunks of your video BIOS
91 used to be.
92 The VESA specification does not require that "vbemode get" provides the
94 correct mode if the current mode was set via some means other than the
95 VESA BIOS extensions.
96 The VESA flat panel interface ceased development at the proposal stage.
98 panelid and panelsize will work on many machines, but the other argu‐
99 ments are unlikely to be implemented on available hardware.
100
103 vbetool was written by Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org>, based on
104 code from read-edid by John Fremlin <john@fremlin.de>, LRMI
105 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/lrmi/) and XFree
106 (http://www.xfree86.org). It is released under the terms of the GNU
107 General Public License.
108vbetool 0.2 31 December 2004 VBETOOL(1)