arch and uvesafb
Since I’m getting large sets of packages to install on a different computer, I was stuck with some time to spend at Arch’s virtual console. I installed lynx and elinks so I could read some news, but I found it a bit tough with the eighty-column display. I had planned on making uvesafb work at some point, but I was dreading it for a number of reasons; I know hardly anything about initrd/initramfs images, and it’s necessary to add v86d to one. I get by in Gentoo and Slack with only v86d in the initramfs, and I just compile it into the kernel. The Arch way allows for abandoning their generic kernel and compiling one’s own, but I hoped to avoid that for a while if I could, since I don’t understand the Arch way too well yet.
I was surprised and happy to find that Arch makes uvesafb easy. The mkinitcpio tool makes building a new initrd dead simple, and the generic Arch kernel already has uvesafb support. Better yet, Arch’s klibc has been built against the kernel with support. I guess the part in which I had to type “v86d” into its configuration file counts as the Arch approach. I had to re-learn how to pass options to a loading module, but it’s not tough. There’s a slight difference in syntax for uvesafb’s mode option when loading it as a module; instead of mode=, it’s mode_option=. Here’s the set of options that works for me, in /etc/modprobe.d/uvesafb:
options uvesafb mode_option=1600x1200-32 scroll=ywrap mtrr=2
Hmm, I see the Arch-generated comments in that file recommend mode=, which is probably just an oversight due to a recent change in the kernel. The Arch wiki had it right, and of course it’s in the kernel documentation.
After rebooting to see that the framebuffer works, I followed Arch’s clear instructions on setting a console font, and it was all good. The console font stuff works pretty much the same as in Slack and Gentoo, though the fonts are in a different location.
Then I noticed that the Arch repositories offer a graphical version of links as the links-g package. I installed that, and now I can see pictures of Dick Cheney as I read the news. Ain’t life grand?
So far, I’m very impressed with the Arch wiki. I’ve come across a couple of outdated pages, but they were clearly marked. Except for the dial-up without a dialer page I mentioned in my last post, everything I’ve found has worked.