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vga(4)

NAME

     vga -- generic video card interface

SYNOPSIS

     options VESA
     options VESA_DEBUG=N
     options VGA_ALT_SEQACCESS
     options VGA_NO_FONT_LOADING
     options VGA_NO_MODE_CHANGE
     options VGA_SLOW_IOACCESS
     options VGA_WIDTH90
     device vga

     In /boot/device.hints:
     hint.vga.0.at="isa"

DESCRIPTION

     The vga driver is a generic video card driver which provides access to
     video cards.  This driver is required for the console driver syscons(4).
     The console driver will call the vga driver to manipulate video hardware
     (changing video modes, loading font, etc).

     The vga driver supports the standard video cards: MDA, CGA, EGA and VGA.
     In addition, the driver can utilize VESA BIOS extensions if the video
     card supports them.  VESA support can either be statically included in
     the kernel or can be loaded as a separate module.

     In order to statically link the VESA support to the kernel, the VESA
     option (see below) must be defined in the kernel configuration file.

     The vesa module can be dynamically loaded into the kernel using
     kldload(8).

DRIVER CONFIGURATION

   Kernel Configuration Options
     The following kernel configuration options (see config(8)) can be used to
     control the vga driver.  These options provide compatibility with certain
     VGA cards.

     VGA_ALT_SEQACCESS
	    You may want to try this option if the mouse pointer is not drawn
	    correctly or the font does not seem to be loaded properly on the
	    VGA card.  However, it may cause flicker on some systems.

     VGA_SLOW_IOACCESS
	    Older VGA cards may require this option for proper operation.  It
	    makes the driver perform byte-wide I/O to VGA registers and slow
	    down a little.

     VGA_WIDTH90
	    This option enables 90 column modes: 90x25, 90x30, 90x43, 90x50,
	    90x60.  These modes are not always supported by the video card and
	    the display.  It is highly likely that LCD display cannot work
	    with these modes.

     The following options add optional features to the driver.

     The following options will remove some features from the vga driver and
     save kernel memory.

     VGA_NO_FONT_LOADING
	    The vga driver can load software font to EGA and VGA cards.  This
	    option removes this feature.  Note that if you use this option and
	    still wish to use the mouse on the console then you must also use
	    the SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE option.  See syscons(4).

     VGA_NO_MODE_CHANGE
	    This option prevents the driver from changing video modes.

EXAMPLES

     Your kernel configuration should normally have:

	   device vga

     And you need the following line in /boot/device.hints.

	   hint.vga.0.at="isa"

     The following lines should be included in the kernel configuration file
     in order to enable the VESA BIOS Extension support.

	   options VESA
	   device vga

     If you do not want VESA support included in the kernel, but want to use
     occasionally, do not add the VESA option.	And load the vesa module as
     desired:

	   kldload vesa

SEE ALSO

     vgl(3), syscons(4), config(8), kldload(8), kldunload(8)

STANDARDS

     Video Electronics Standards Association, VESA BIOS Extension (VBE).

HISTORY

     The vga driver first appeared in FreeBSD 3.1.

AUTHORS

     The vga driver was written by Soren Schmidt <sos@FreeBSD.org> and
     Kazutaka Yokota <yokota@FreeBSD.org>.  This manual page was written by
     Kazutaka Yokota.

FreeBSD 5.4			 June 30, 1999			   FreeBSD 5.4

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