1RESIZECONS(8) Console Support RESIZECONS(8)
2
3
4
6 resizecons - change kernel idea of the console size
7
9 resizecons COLSxROWS
10 resizecons -lines ROWS
11
13 The resizecons command tries to change the videomode of the console.
14 There are several aspects to this: (a) the kernel must know about it,
15 (b) the hardware must know about it, (c) user programs must know about
16 it, (d) the console font may have to be adapted.
17
18 (a) The kernel is told about the change using the ioctl VT_RESIZE.
19 This causes the kernel to reallocate console screen memory for all vir‐
20 tual consoles, and might fail if there is not enough memory. (In that
21 case, try to disallocate some virtual consoles first.) If this ioctl
22 succeeds, but a later step fails (e.g., because you do not have root
23 permissions), you may be left with a very messy screen.
24
25 The most difficult part of this is (b), since it requires detailed
26 knowledge of the video card hardware, and the setting of numerous reg‐
27 isters. Only changing the number of rows is slightly easier, and
28 resizecons will try to do that itself, when given the -lines option.
29 (Probably, root permission will be required.) The command resizecons
30 COLSxROWS will execute restoretextmode -r COLSxROWS (and hence requires
31 that you have svgalib installed). Here COLSxROWS is a file that was
32 created earlier by restoretextmode -w COLSxROWS. Again, either root
33 permissions are required, or restoretextmode has to be suid root.
34
35 In order to deal with (c), resizecons does a `stty rows ROWS cols COLS'
36 for each active console (in the range tty0..tty15), and sends a SIG‐
37 WINCH signal to selection if it finds the file /tmp/selection.pid.
38
39 Finally, (d) is dealt with by executing a setfont command. Most likely,
40 the wrong font is loaded, and you may want to do another setfont your‐
41 self afterwards.
42
43
45 resizecons does not work on all hardware. This command used to be
46 called resize, but was renamed to avoid conflict with another command
47 with the same name.
48
49
51 setfont(8), stty(1), selection(1), restoretextmode(8), disalloc(8)
52
53
54
55
56Local 17 Jan 1995 RESIZECONS(8)