M H Stein wrote: I've been following this in a very casual way, so maybe it's already been offered, but the Linux kernel source contains a lot of documentation about VESA modes and VESA polling. A quick whole-word grep for "vesa" in <source-tree>/Documents lists several files in <source-tree>/Documents/fb and <source-tree>/Documents/svga.txt The source files and header files themselves are generally reasonably well-commented, and should also be informative. It's all in the kernel source tarballs available at ftp.kernel.org, or I could make an archive of just those docs and the associated driver trees if anybody wants them. Doc

On Monday 24 December 2007 13:57, M H Stein wrote: I kept seeing stuff about what the OP wanted but didn't remember the post and didn't want to jump in, but this helps... I have a habit of altering my /etc/lilo.conf file after a linux install, and changing the line that sometimes refers to a framebuffer or which says "vga = normal" to activate a line that says "vga = ask". When I do that I get prompted after boot to hit <return> to see video modes, and after doing so I get a list of what it's found so far. At that point I can also type "scan" and have it look for some more, if I want, but since (in the case of my server at least) I find a nice 132x60 mode that's still quite readable, I don't usually bother any more. I recently changed that line to specify that mode directly after we had our fun and games with the ice storm and the glitches that caused, choice "a" being also shown as "030c" putting the line "vga = 0x030c" did the trick. I don't know the system well enough to say exactly where one might start looking, but a perusal of the source code of any recent linux should show this code, both the one that comes up with the initial list and the one that probes further, when "scan" is typed, to give a pretty good idea of how it's done. Hope this helps... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin