MAN page from Old RedHat 5.X kbd-0.94-6.i386.rpm

RESIZECONS

Section: Console Support (8)
Updated: 17 Jan 1995
Index

NAME

resizecons - change kernel idea of the console size

SYNOPSIS

resizecons COLSxROWS
resizecons -lines ROWS

DESCRIPTION

Theresizeconscommand 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 knowabout 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 forall 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., becauseyou do not have root permissions), you may be left with a very messyscreen.

The most difficult part of this is (b), since it requires detailedknowledge of the video card hardware, and the setting of numerousregisters. Only changing the number of rows is slightly easier, and resizeconswill try to do that itself, when given the-linesoption. (Probably, root permission will be required.)The commandresizecons COLSxROWSwill executerestoretextmode -r COLSxROWS(and hence requires that you have svgalib installed). Here COLSxROWSis a file that was created earlier byrestoretextmode -w COLSxROWS.Again, either root permissions are required, orrestoretextmodehas to be suid root.

In order to deal with (c),resizeconsdoes a `stty rows ROWS cols COLS' for each active console (in therange tty0..tty15), and sends a SIGWINCH signal toselectionif it finds the file /tmp/selection.pid.

Finally, (d) is dealt with by executing asetfontcommand. Most likely, the wrong font is loaded, and you may want todo anothersetfontyourself afterwards.

BUGS

resizeconsdoes not work on all hardware.This command used to be calledresize,but was renamed to avoid conflict with another command with the same name.

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