# FreeBSD Handbook - 3.2. Virtual Consoles and Terminals



## balanga (Nov 27, 2017)

Is the FreeBSD Handbook section '3.2. Virtual Consoles and Terminals' uptodate? I presume a lot has changed over the last few years, but do not know of a definitive reference point for setting up screen mode. I don't think `allscreens_flags="MODE_279"` works in many cases... and I've never been sure about the difference between vt and sc or found an good explanation as to which should be used and when...


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## k.jacker (Nov 27, 2017)

Chapter 3.2.3 doesn't look up to date anymore since it does not mention that vt is the default.
The vesa.ko module can only be loaded when syscons (sc) is in use and
also the `vidcontrol` tool is not working on vt and can only be used to tune sc.

Main goal with vt it is that it supports Unicode.
Though not all features of sc have been implemented into vt as of now, e.g. font size switching and blinking cursor comes to my mind.


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## Snurg (Nov 28, 2017)

I have newly installed 11.1release and i find me forced to to switch to sc because suspend/resume completely fails for the text mode and mostly for the graphics mode, when using vt.
Actually this is an improvement, as in 11RC2 I used previously, it totally failed.
And this failure is caused by vesa.ko, which is pulled in automatically by vt (which explains why you cannot load it anymore then - it is already loaded!)

So I now changed some things in my /boot/loader.conf:


```
[INDENT]################################# console[/INDENT]

[INDENT]# vesa_load="YES"
# vt still buggy with X and modern nvidia driver
# kern.vty="vt"
kern.vty="sc"
hw.vga.textmode="YES"[/INDENT]
```


Next I need to build a new kernel because black on white kills my eyes, and because the default scrollback buffer is way too small  


```
device vga # VGA video card driver
# XXX options VESA # Add support for VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE)

# XXX device splash # Splash screen and screen saver support

# syscons is the default console driver, resembling an SCO console
device sc
# XXX options SC_PIXEL_MODE # add support for the raster text mode
options SC_HISTORY_SIZE=32000
options SC_NORM_ATTR=(BG_GREEN|FG_BLACK)
options SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=(BG_GREEN|FG_RED)
options SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=(BG_RED|FG_BLACK)
options SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=(BG_RED|FG_BLUE)

# vt is the new video console driver
# XXX device vt
# XXX device vt_vga
# XXX device vt_efifb
```

I must make sure that all that is commented out in the above snippet isn't enabled elsewhere, because:
-vesa kills suspend/resume
-splash annoys
-keep all vt related stuff out of the kernel because they pull in vesa

And then keep in mind that the extended vesa modes (which sc can use) are highly unstandardized, and sometimes even lacking in some graphics cards to save the bios space for other things. Regarding the available modes, see these lists here.

Sigh.
I personally just prefer to stay with 1970's 25x80 text mode, easy to read and blazing fast. So I didn't test the sc graphics modes yet...



k.jacker said:


> Main goal with vt it is that it supports Unicode.


And UEFI... I don't have an UEFI system available atm, so cannot check whether sc works on uefi computers


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