87

grub2 isn't really fit in the best screen resolution that my laptop can support (1280 x 800).

How can I do this without using a third party application ?

6 Answers 6

104

To do this safely requires two steps.

Step 1: find the preferred mode

Reboot and press and hold Shift to display your grub. Press C to enter console mode. Then type (for Ubuntu versions before 18.04):

$ vbeinfo

For Ubuntu 18.04 and later:

$ videoinfo

This will display various stuff how grub recognizes your display. At the bottom is "preferred mode" - in your case it should say 1280x800. Note down the value.

Note: sometimes, some buggy video cards incorrectly give Grub the wrong preferred resolution - if the preferred mode is much higher than you were expecting, then select the nearest mode in the list displayed that you were expecting.

Press Esc to return to grub and press Enter to boot.

Step 2: Setting the resolution in grub

Reach for your terminal and type

$ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

find the line

#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

remove the # and change 640x480 with the preferred mode you wrote down. E.g.:

GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x800

save, then type

$ sudo update-grub

Note: the preferred mode has to be among those listed by vbeinfo. For example, if your preferred mode is 1920x1080 (a common 16x9 aspect ratio setting), your preferred mode is NOT supported by vbeinfo and may not work correctly. In fact, there do not seem to be any 16x9 modes supported by vbeinfo, as of Ubuntu 13.04. In that case you could try falling back to something common like 640x480, which, it seems most monitors support and vbeinfo supports. Also, not all the modes supported by vbeinfo are necessarily supported by your monitor and you may have to experiment.

11
  • 21
    You can use sudo hwinfo --framebuffer shows the same information as vbeinfo.
    – Krista K
    Jan 12, 2014 at 1:48
  • 4
    While running 16.0.4 I noticed that the resolution kept getting reset after the kernel started. I had to add: GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD="keep" and GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset" to make it stick.
    – JD Frias
    Nov 30, 2016 at 20:41
  • 4
    That fixed grub, but to fix the TTY console resolution I needed to sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup and selected terminus 16x32 for the font. (Note that nomodeset caused a worse problem. Other details: Ubuntu 18.04, Dell XPS 15, 3840 x 2160).
    – robocat
    Dec 6, 2018 at 4:22
  • 2
    Mentioned above: sudo hwinfo --framebuffer does NOT show the same information as videoinfo during boot. I believe one is showing resolutions after my NVIDIA drivers are loaded and the other is before.
    – PKKid
    Mar 16, 2021 at 14:03
  • 2
    videoinfo: command not found and vbeinfo: command not found
    – pst007x
    Feb 20, 2022 at 9:22
36

I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 and things are a little different in the packaged version of Grub for me.

The vbeinfo command does not exist.

  1. Turn on
  2. At the grub menu press c to get the grub comand line
  3. Type videoinfo
    This lists all the modes - it is the <width>x<height> you need to make note of.
  4. Optionally, there is a videotest command which you can use to test a given resolution, e.g. videotest 1280x1024. However, while this test worked for me, I could not then get back to the grub menu! So that's not quite as useful (unless anyone can explain how to escape the test.)
  5. Boot up fully and edit (sudo) /etc/default/grub but the line you're looking for is now called GRUB_GFXMODE. So un-comment and set that to your desired mode.
  6. Run update-grub and reboot.
3
  • 2
    For me with 16.04, typing videoinfo at the grub command-line resulted in an error like "Secure Boot forbids loading module...". So then I disabled Secure Boot in the BIOS settings and then a more reasonable screen resolution appeared in the grub menu without me having to do anything else. Maybe the Secure Boot option was stopping grub's default auto value for GRUB_GFXMODE from taking effect.
    – snark
    Sep 15, 2017 at 17:18
  • 1
    'hwinfo --framebuffer' at bash command line is supposed to be the same thing as 'vbeinfo' or 'videoinfo', but it doesn't work for me. (I get one line after another output to screen, but every line overwrites the previous, and the last line is erased by bash prompt. Redirecting output to file yields an empty file.) Nov 24, 2018 at 12:11
  • To exit videotest, I just use CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart grub.
    – mchid
    Jun 28, 2023 at 19:51
9

I am running 14.04LTS on an ASUS M51AC with an Nvidia 625GT OEM. I found that in addition to the accepted answer, I needed to also add the line:

GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD="keep"

to /etc/default/grub.

2
  • Holy shit this finally solved a seemingly completely unrelated issue: After changing monitors from 1920x1080 to 1920x1200, GRUB was displayed in a very low resolution, and after booting Ubuntu, the screen would go into power save mode, sometimes taking a minute or so to come back. With the right resolution and GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD="keep", it finally starts up as desired!
    – iFreilicht
    Apr 22, 2020 at 13:09
9

For me on Ubuntu 17.10 server it was

GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX="keep"
GRUB_GFXMODE="1920x1080x32"

I also had to set the following to prevent shutdown from hanging

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"
4

Grub Customizer:

Easy to use Grub2 settings customizer. Go to "Preferences" -> "Appearance"

  • check "custom resolution" and select one of the available resolution
  • click "close"
  • hit "save"
  • close program and restart computer

enter image description here

2
  • 1
    i've found this method to be unreliable, my menu colors never update and the resolution list is not valid in all cases. luckily nothing breaks when choosing an unsupported resolution, it just doesn't change anything Jul 22, 2011 at 7:44
  • 1
    I used to have the same issue where no visual settings applied would take hold... under the "Advanced" tab in "Preference" make sure "GRUB_GFXMODE" is checked and when using a background picture make sure it is in the same "/boot" folder as the grub installation. Now all options w/in the program works perfectly for me w/ no issues at all.
    – 13east
    Jul 22, 2011 at 14:51
0

For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS this worked for me (on ESXi VMs):

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

make sure to remove maybe-ubiquity

#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

make sure to comment/disable this line.

GFX_GFXMODE=1024x768 
GFX_PAYLOAD_LINUX="keep"

change to desired resolution

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .