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help adding extended text modes in Hypervisor
I am trying to get the hypervisor to run in an extended text modes,
specifically 132x44 text mode. I don't really know much about
setting video modes so there may be something inherently broken with
my approach. I have done some Linux device drivers programming and a
little assembler but am probably out of my depth. I have tried
putting the correct VGA register settings (taken after booting into
132x44 text mode vga=0x133 in regular Linux) for this mode into

xen-2.0/xen/drivers/char/console.c
static void init_vga(void)
{
...
static unsigned char regs[]

and setting the #define COLUMNS,LINES

This failed resulted in the monitor switching off at boot, though it
did still boot.

I also looked into using the Linux video initialization routine in
(line 110 linux/arch/i386/boot/video.S). Firstly in
(xen-2.0/xen/arch/x86/boot/x86_32.S) but this doesn't look like the
write place.

I guess video.S corresponds to the init_vga function
(xen-2.0/xen/drivers/char/console.c) the Xen Hypervisor. In (line 398
linux/arch/i386/boot/setup.S) where the video routine is called the
comment states that %ds must be pointing to the bootsector, what is
this for? how would you do this? Near the end setup.S the video.S is
included and at the end a comment "after this point there is some free
space which is used by by the video mode handling code". Is this what
the %ds is being used for?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Edward Middleton



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Re: help adding extended text modes in Hypervisor [ In reply to ]
> I am trying to get the hypervisor to run in an extended text modes,
> specifically 132x44 text mode. I don't really know much about
> setting video modes so there may be something inherently broken with
> my approach. I have done some Linux device drivers programming and a
> little assembler but am probably out of my depth. I have tried
> putting the correct VGA register settings (taken after booting into
> 132x44 text mode vga=0x133 in regular Linux) for this mode into


Feel free to say 'yes', but is it really worth the effort?

When dom0 takes over the VGA console (which is the default mode
of operation) you can arrange to put it into whatever mode you
like; you just won't get the initial boot messages from Xen in
the extended text mode.

ian


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Re: help adding extended text modes in Hypervisor [ In reply to ]
Ian Pratt wrote:

>>I am trying to get the hypervisor to run in an extended text modes,
>>specifically 132x44 text mode. I don't really know much about
>>setting video modes so there may be something inherently broken with
>>my approach. I have done some Linux device drivers programming and a
>>little assembler but am probably out of my depth. I have tried
>>putting the correct VGA register settings (taken after booting into
>>132x44 text mode vga=0x133 in regular Linux) for this mode into
>>
>>
>Feel free to say 'yes', but is it really worth the effort?
>
>
Ultimately it would be good being able to see most of the boot messages
while booting. I guess it really depends on whether its possible to get
video.S to work (allow the same mode selection as Linux) with a simple
hack or weather it is much more involved.

>When dom0 takes over the VGA console (which is the default mode
>of operation) you can arrange to put it into whatever mode you
>like; you just won't get the initial boot messages from Xen in
>the extended text mode.
>
>
I was looking at modifying the hypervisor because I couldn't get this to
work and couldn't find a specific reference stating it was possible. I
have the following lines in grub and it doesn't set the video mode

title Xen 2.0 / XenLinux 2.6.9
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=131072 console=vga
module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-xen0 root=/dev/sda6 vga=0x133

I have tried various permutations of this with no success.

Thanks

Edward


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Re: help adding extended text modes in Hypervisor [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 03:10:22AM +0000, Ian Pratt wrote:
> > I am trying to get the hypervisor to run in an extended text modes,
> > specifically 132x44 text mode. I don't really know much about
> > setting video modes so there may be something inherently broken with
> > my approach. I have done some Linux device drivers programming and a
> > little assembler but am probably out of my depth. I have tried
> > putting the correct VGA register settings (taken after booting into
> > 132x44 text mode vga=0x133 in regular Linux) for this mode into
>
>
> Feel free to say 'yes', but is it really worth the effort?
>
> When dom0 takes over the VGA console (which is the default mode
> of operation) you can arrange to put it into whatever mode you
> like; you just won't get the initial boot messages from Xen in
> the extended text mode.

Is there something like dmesg for xen?

Regards,
Luciano Rocha


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Re: help adding extended text modes in Hypervisor [ In reply to ]
Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
> Is there something like dmesg for xen?

'xm dmesg' will show the Xen hypervisor's queued log messages.

--
Derrik Pates
dpates@dsdk12.net


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Re: help adding extended text modes in Hypervisor [ In reply to ]
> Edward> I am trying to get the hypervisor to run in an extended text modes,

> Ian> When dom0 takes over the VGA console (which is the default mode
> >of operation) you can arrange to put it into whatever mode you
> >like; you just won't get the initial boot messages from Xen in
> >the extended text mode.

> I was looking at modifying the hypervisor because I couldn't get this to
> work and couldn't find a specific reference stating it was possible.

I too, have failed to set any vga mode for any Xen installation. Could
the developers confirm 1 more time that it "works for them" (if indeed)
and we can try to characterize the bug more.

> module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-xen0 root=/dev/sda6 vga=0x133

I too have tried various vga variants without any success.

--
Jared Rhine <jared@wordzoo.com>



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