Widescreen linux console?

I'm trying to get a full screen / widescreen linux (in this specific case, Centos) console working. So far the best I can do is set vga=791 in grub.conf:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-34.EL ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 vga=791

I don't even know why 791 works, to be honest.. it's better than the default, but is still roughly a 4 x 3 aspect ratio, not widescreen.

I'm looking for something akin to what you'd see in single user mode or verbose boot mode in Mac OS X. I'm using a Macbook Pro (1440 x 900).

Cheers,
-dre

 

Re: Widescreen linux console

I too would like to be able to have a full screen on a MacBook Pro, at best I can use 1024x768 which is 4:3 ratio, leaves a nice letterbox view but not full screen.
If anyone knows of a resolution please let us know.

thanks.

 

There's a table on this page that lists the various modes:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=152575

However, widescreen modes aren't included. My guess is that they're not supported VESA modes, but I'm not 100% certain. (791 is 1024x768x16)

There's some discussion (from late 2005) on the Gentoo forums about VESA framebuffers as well:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=160013

...where they mention using an old DOS program (LFB.EXE) to list out the available modes. Not sure that would work under Parallels, but there is mention of it working from dosemu.