How to change font size and/or screen resolution in Virtual Terminals TTYs 1-6…?

Question

The default font size in the non-X terminals is too small for me.
How can I changed it permanently ?

I've ran sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup in TTY 1, but seems to only effect the 'gnome-terminal' running courtesy X in TTY 7...

UPDATE ... I've just checked more carefully... It actually did changed the font, from 8-14 (it only offers 8 14 and 16).. The width of each char did not change; they only got taller (ie. fewer lines on the screen) ...
I'm getting 160 characters across the screen (on a 17"CRT). That makes it impossible for me... So it seems like it may be a screen resolution issue, and not a font issue (unless I can choose a larger font size somehow)

So the question is now.. Either: How do I change the font size to larger than offered by sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup ... Or: How can I reducet the screen resoluton of TTYs 1-6 ?

Answer 1

You can force your TTYs to run in different resolutions and font sizes by adding vga=xxx to your boot line. xxx should be replaced by any of these values:

Colours   640x400 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
--------+-----------------------------------------------------
 4 bits |                  0x302      
 8 bits |  0x300   0x301   0x303    0x305    0x307     0x31C
15 bits |          0x310   0x313    0x316    0x319     0x31D
16 bits |          0x311   0x314    0x317    0x31A     0x31E
24 bits |          0x312   0x315    0x318    0x31B     0x31F
32 bits |            

_{Some of these do not work on some hardware. When it fails you will be presented with a list of alternatives.}

edit: hwinfo can show you scancodes you can use with the following command:
sudo hwinfo --framebuffer | grep Mode

Resolution = columns, lines:

640 x 400 = 80 x 25
640 x 480 = 80 x 30
800 x 600 = 100 x 37
1024 x 768 = 128 x 48
1280 x 1024 = 160 x 64
1600 x 1200 = 200 x 75

To make it permanent you can add the vga=xxx to your bootloader options. The file you need in 11.04 is /etc/default/grub and you need to run sudo update-grub after any changes (from: How to remove GRUB selection? ).

Answer 2

The tty in question is pretty much 80 characters on 24 lines by definition and tradition. I don't know how to change that. I don't think you can, short of buying a new monitor.