Re: Debian Jessie : regular console instead of a hi-res one!

[Stephen Powell <zlinuxman@fastmail.com>]

On Mon, Sep 5, 2016, at 12:01, Mayuresh Kathe wrote:
> 
> Is there any way to get a regular console under Debian Jessie?
> I don't use a GUI, just plain old CLI, and working on hi-res with "tiny" 
> little fonts is extremely painful.
> I have tried playing with "console-setup". No results.
> 

Yes.  What you are seeing is a "frame buffer" console.  In most cases,
the X driver requires this.  But if you are not using an X server, you
can disable it.  The trick is to blacklist the right driver.  For example,
if you have a radeon chipset, blacklisting the radeon driver might accomplish
this.  Create a file such as /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf.  Put a line in it
which says

   blacklist radeon

Save the file and exit the editor.  Whenever you blacklist a module, it is
a good idea to rebuild your initial RAM file system, although if the module
is not loaded until after the permanent root file system is mounted read-only,
this is not strictly required.  To do this, issue

   update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

Then shutdown and reboot.

To determine which module to blacklist, issue

   dmesg|less

and see if you can figure out which module is loading.  You can also issue

   lsmod|less

to see which modules are loaded.  Perhaps you can identify which module is
the frame buffer driver this way.  Knowing your video chipset helps give you
a clue also.  Issue

   lspci|less

and look for VGA.  This may give you a clue as to the identity of the frame
buffer driver.

-- 
  .''`.     Stephen Powell    <zlinuxman@fastmail.com>
 : :'  :
 `. `'`
   `-