[syslinux] maximum resolution

[Nazo]

On 1/12/06, Murali Krishnan Ganapathy <gmurali at cs.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Nazo wrote:
> > On 1/11/06, Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Jan 11, 2006 at 06:20:02PM -0500, Andrey Vul wrote:
> >>
> >>> in isolinux, what's the maximimum text resolution (how many characters
> >>> per screen)?
> >>> i need to expand the f2 file and i don't know if the limit's been reached
> >>>
> >> I never knew ISOLinux does switch text resolution. Neither didn't known
> >> that it can have different resolutions on different screens.
> >>
> >>
> >> Geert Stappers
> >> (missing the context of the original question)
> >>
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> >>
> >>
> > Andrey is asking due to the fact that it can use images.
> > Unfortunately, Syslinux is unable to change resolutions as you
> > suspected.  In fact, what it actually does is use the default
> > 640x480x4 that is set by the VGA bios (so don't go setting it to EGA
> > or you may get troubles.)  The easiest solution for when you run out
> > of room on the F2 page is to make an F3 page.  Of course, you can
> > always create a module (I'm thinking complex menu would be a start)
> > and you could maybe do a bit using that, and, you can also boot
> > another bootloader like lilo (which seems to be able to support VESA,
> > though I don't really know how it does it since the only times I use
> > lilo are when an installer sets it up for me.)
> >
> I wonder if something like this can be done?
>
> Extend the syntax of "F1 filename" to "F1 prog arg1 arg2 ....". If the
> user hits F1, then prog is launched with specified arguments. Ofcourse
> when only one word appears after F1 we default to current
> interpretation. We assume that "prog" is a well behaved program, i.e.
> either it does not switch text modes (preferred) or if it does switches
> back when control goes back to syslinux. If this is done, then one can
> write a small comboot code which displays the contents of a text file
> and allows the user to scroll through the text file.
>
> Extending this analogy even further, it might be cool to be able to
> assign shortcut keys to certain commands. But given the size constraints
> I dont know if it is a good idea. This might be possible if we had a
> comboot version of the current CLI. This way those who want to add
> features can just add it to the comboot and use their CLI.
>
> - Murali
>
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>
Well, the usual argument is that these things can be done easily
enough with the menu systems.  As for more extended help, the argument
is that the only sure-fire proper way to do that would be to write a
COM32 module.

You know, it strikes me that this sort of problem crops up rather
often.  I can't help but wonder if there isn't some way that someone
with more programming knowledge could come up with a sort of generic
COM32 help module that can parse some external file (I'm thinking it'd
be nicest if it didn't have to be xxxlinux.cfg since that means the
module will only work in the latest versions.)  Such a system would be
easy enough that those of us with less programming abilities can even
do it.  I'm kind of thinking something along the lines of a program
like less, or maybe even just more (funny how less is more, but, more
is less.)  d-: