# Why is my framebuffer console so ugly?

## Schwinni

Hi all,

when booting a Gentoo Live CD the framebuffer console looks really great.

But after installing everything, only text looks good in the console.

Everything else (mc, kernel's menuconfig, alsamixer) looks so ugly.

It looks ugly, no matter if I use splashutils or not.

I had a Radeon 9600Pro until a few weeks and there framebuffer didn't work very well (except text).

Now I have a GeForce 6800 and it is the same.

I tried vesafb, vesafb-tng and radeonfb/nvidiafb. It always looks ugly.

Here is a screenshot of mc taken with fbgrab:

http://quadrant1.net/uglyfb.png

What can I do to fix this?

Greetz,

Schwinni

P.S.: On my notebook (Centrino with intel 855 graphics) everything looks fine with vesafb or vesafb-tng.

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## Adrien

I'm sorry but I don't really understand what the problem is, 'cause I always thought kernel's menuconfig, alsamixer ... looked like shit. These are console utilities and I don't think they're made to look great.

Are you talkin' about the resolution?   :Rolling Eyes: 

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## Schwinni

No, take a look at the screenshot. It looks like sh*t.

It should look like this: http://gentoo-portage.com/Image/309

The problem is, that it is not only ugly, but that you cannot even read anything!

In kernel's menuconfig the text "jumps" when scrolling down and the entries are almost unreadable.

Ah yes, I forgot:

In an X console all the non-text-only programs look normal!

Greetz,

Schwinni

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## Drunkula

Well the second screenshot is not a framebuffer console but a console in X.  Granted the first screenshot looks terrible but you're comparing apples to oranges.  

What mode did you set in your boot loader and/or in your kernel config?

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## Schwinni

 *Drunkula wrote:*   

> Well the second screenshot is not a framebuffer console but a console in X.

 

I know.

 *Quote:*   

> Granted the first screenshot looks terrible but you're comparing apples to oranges.

 

No, on my notebook mc itself looks like this - of course also in a framebuffer console.

This was just the first screenshot I found to show how it should look like.  :Wink: 

 *Quote:*   

> What mode did you set in your boot loader and/or in your kernel config?

 

With vesafb, I can't set a mode in the kernel, with vesafb-tng, I have set 1024x768@60

In grub.conf I tried following combinations:

```

vga=792 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@60 (this one works great @ the notebook with vesafb)

video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@60

video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-24@60

video=vesafb:1024x768-32@60

video=vesafb:1024x768-24@60

```

Always the same crappy output.

Greetz,

Schwinni

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## Mr_Maniac

Same Problems here...

First: I don't have de_DE.UTF-8 and I can't create it...

I only have de_DE.utf8

When I use the utf8-locale, make menuconfig and iptraf looks terrible (borders not showing).

When I use UTF-8 (which doesn't exist), there is a "simple" Border with "- | +" as horizontal, vertical and edges.

Other strange results:

When I set $TERM to xterm and leave my locale at utf8, I see "x q l m k j" as borders and edges...

No change with UTF-8 here...

Oh... And I have de_DE.UTF-8/UTF-8 in my locales.build.

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## frilled

Yeah, this has been bugging me for ages. I am quite sure I have ncurses built with unicode. I tried various console fonts in vain. To make it bearable I have to set TERM to something even more stupid. No line drawing then, either, but at least it's readable.

And if someone could enlighten me on the DUMPKEYS_CHARSET and CONSOLETRANSLATION variables in /etc/conf.d/(keymaps|consolefont) scripts, I'd be very happy. Didn't find any docs on that and playing with it yielded no immediately visible results ...

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## sirdilznik

 *Schwinni wrote:*   

> With vesafb, I can't set a mode in the kernel, with vesafb-tng, I have set 1024x768@60
> 
> In grub.conf I tried following combinations:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

You sure CAN set the video mode for vesafb, you are just using the wrong notation.  1024x768-32@60 is notation you can use with vesafb-tng, but NOT vesafb.  For vesafb you will want notation like this: vga=0x318.  For more video modes for vesafb click here.  As an example here is the relevant part of my grub.conf:

```
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x31B splash=verbose,theme:MetallTux quiet
```

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