How to set boot up display resolution ?

PaulM47

Posted this in 'Installation and Setup' but nobody seems inclined to help, so trying here....

Hopefully a simple question....

I'm a complete newbie to FreeBSD, my background is with Debian/Ubuntu/Mint.

I've installed pfsense on a Wyse Z90D7 box. When I power up, if I do nothing the video display briefly shows the power up activity, then is completely scrambled. I have no video monitors (I have quite a few) that will display anything usable.

If I hit the Escape key, then type 'gop set 3', press Enter, then type 'boot' and press Enter, I get a usable display that boots to the console menu. How do I do this automatically ? I've seen comments about editing /boot/rc.conf and /boot/loader.rc.local etc. but cannot see how to do this from pfsense.

Can someone please provide (very) simple instructions for sorting this problem, or point me to some instructions to achieve this ?

Thanks in advance
PaulM

stephenw10

Try creating the file /boot/loader.conf.local and adding that line there.

If it works at the boot loader it should equally work there.

Steve

PaulM47

Thanks for your reply. Run out of time this weekend, I'll have a look next weekend if I can.

Regards
PaulM

jimp

If that doesn't help, edit or create /boot/loader.conf.local and set a specific resolution, perhaps:

hw.vga.textmode=0
kern.vt.fb.default_mode="1280x800"

(Change the resolution to whatever the native resolution of your display is)

PaulM47

Thanks for the replies. Tried both suggestions but neither work. I've enabled SSH, which gives me the same screen as on the monitor, just have to hope the network interface doesn't cause any problems.

I've been running IpFire for many years as my Firewall of choice, but I must admit I'm impressed with pfSense. The only reason I'm running it is because I wanted to set up the Wyse thin client as a WiFi access point, pfSense was the only thing I could find that would boot with the crippled Wyse BIOS and provide the functions I needed. I may well consider pfSense as an alternative to IpFire in the future.

PaulM

jimp

Did you install this using ZFS? Did you use GPT or MBR?

If it's booting EFI, you might also try this in /boot/loader.conf.local:

efi_max_resolution="1280x800"

Or something lower like 800x600 in either that or my previous example.

Lastly you might also try this form for /boot/loader.conf.local:

exec="gop set 3"