I'm setting up a test platform in VirtualBox, the host system is Ubuntu Lucid Desktop, and the guest system is Ubuntu Lucid Server.
The basic server installation provides 80x25 console with slow scrolling and slow screen updates. This has been fixed by blacklisting vga16fb
. After that I got 80x25 console with quick screen updates and scrolling.
Then I tried to disable splash screen and quiet mode by editing /etc/default/grub
, removing splash
and quiet
default boot parameters from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
. After that I got boot messages quickly displayed during the boot on 80x25 console.
Then I tried to set up higher resolutions in console. I provided a desired graphics mode in /etc/default/grub
file with GRUB_GFXMODE
parameter, and set GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX
parameter to keep
to keep the graphics mode persistent in console. After that I have a desired resolution in grub menu, desired resolution in console, but the boot messages between grub boot line selection and login screen are now invisible (black screen).
How to configure grub and console so that all parts of the boot process - grub, boot messages and console login - are visible in a desired resolution console?
UPD: Things go better once I provide fbcon
module for initrd
: edit file /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
and add a fbcon
line there, then rebuild the initrd
by issuing update-initramfs -vu
. All as root, of course. After that I started to see boot-up messages, first of them saying Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
. However, some of the boot-up output goes into different console mode (like fsck
messages), and I see the screen switching there and back again. But still that's much more than blank screen.