uvesafb / v86d

[oz]

Have any of you used this yet?

It's a virtual framebuffer that gives you higher and/or custom resolutions for the command line. Support for it has been added to the 2.6.24 and higher kernels, so it's easily available to anyone that wants to try it out. A virtual daemon is required to use uvesafb and that's where v86d comes into play. You'll need to install the v86d package available here, with additional information being available from here.

It appears to have a number of advantages over vesa framebuffering so it might be something some of you need, or could use. After experimenting with it most of the weekend, I'm putting it on the back burner for my own use because it wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it will no doubt be on my box again in the near future. I was really wanting to find a way to use a 1920x1200 resolution in the console but uvesafb was not able to do that on my machine.

If you should try it, let me know how it goes.

[oz]

Just want to add here that if any of you should decide to try this, be sure to check for the v86d package in your distro's repositories first (for easier installation). Also be sure to check their wiki if they have one for any special instructions related to setting it up. There might also be additional information to be found on their forums.