Change resolution when booting from USB

[Nate]

Hello,

I've installed Tiny Core 3.5 onto a USB stick, and I use it
mostly on a 1920x1200 monitor.  However, sometimes, I want
to use it on a different computer that has 1024x768 resolution.

When I tried booting the USB stick on the machine that
has 1024x768, I see some of the bootup text, but then the screen
goes blank.  I am able to get to a prompt by going to a virtual terminal
using Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or F2, can't remember).

Anyway, can anyone tell me how to get to the F2 / F3 / F4 prompts
that show up when booting the CD?  Why doesn't the boot prompt show
up when I boot from the USB flash drive?  The boot prompt doesn't show up
even when I boot the USB drive from my 1920x1200 computer.

Thanks,
--Nate
:qa

[Juanito]

I'm not sure how you setup your usb stick to boot, but are the text files boot.msg, f2, f3, f4 present and referenced by your bootloader?

example from extlinux.conf:

Code: [Select]

F1 boot.msg
F2 f2
F3 f3
F4 f4

[gerald_clark]

Most boot loaders only show a boot menu if a pause or timeout option is included.

[Nate]

My pendrive was created using the USBinstall script that comes with Tiny Core 3.5.

I guess that it (the script) doesn't specify a grub menu?  Perhaps
I'll just look at a Tiny Core CD to see what kind of grub settings that
it has, or how it sets up the prompt.

Does anyone know if there's a switch or something in the usbinstall script where I can say "Install Tiny Core to my USB, and give me the same menu on startup that the CD has"?

Thanks,
--Nate

[tinypoodle]

'usbinstall' is using syslinux or extlinux, not grub.
The CD is using isolinux.

[Nate]

'usbinstall' is using syslinux or extlinux, not grub.
The CD is using isolinux.

I looked on the USB and it's using extlinux.

I'll research how to put up a menu like syslinux using extlinux,
unless someone on the boards/forums has already done something like this.

I'm a bit surprised that it's not already built-in to the USB boot loader.
It seems like it would be pretty common to use a USB-flash drive on different
computers with different resolutions.  Am I missing something obvious?

Thanks,
--Nate

[gerald_clark]

Just add anothe boot entry to the one already there with different resolution defined.

[vinnie]

If you used the script to ext (HDD) the exitlinux.conf file will have not much standard settings.
The display of bootcode completely absent (looks here) and the prompt skyp you control.
If you want to see the command line add PROMPT 1 to your exitlinux.conf , this is an example of my configuration file in /mnt/sdb1/boot/extlinux/exitlinux.conf

Code: [Select]

PROMPT 1

DEFAULT microcore
LABEL microcore
KERNEL /boot/bzImage
APPEND initrd=/boot/microcore.gz quiet noicons noswap multivt kmap=qwerty/it lang=it_IT@euro tce=LABEL=microgrigia restore=LABEL=microgrigia/tce waitusb=5
But I think that if you use xorg, xsetup and vga=7xx don't work, you test.

[Nate]

Thanks --

I put the PROMPT 1 in my /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

However, if I type "tinycore vga=767" or any of the vga combinations,
tiny core just reverts to the VGA configuration that I previously defined (1920x1200), and
the monitor displays the message "signal out of range" or something similar.

However, if I type "tinycore xsetup" at the boot prompt, then I'm able to choose
a resolution that fits the monitor that is connected to the computer and it works!

Why don't the vga=7xx settings work when I specify them at the boot prompt?

Here's my my extlinux.conf:

DEFAULT tinycore
LABEL tinycore
KERNEL /boot/bzImage
APPEND initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet waitusb=5:UUID="blahblha" tce=UUID="blahblah"
prompt 1
F1 boot.msg
F2 f2
F3 f3
F4 f4

[curaga]

vga= only affects the framebuffer console. It only affects X if you're using Xfbdev instead of the default Xvesa. There's a xvesa bootcode to control the xvesa resolution.

[tinypoodle]

'vga=ask' should give a selection of valid text and framebuffer modes for console.