Unix/Linux Systems Can't Resize Console Windows -> guest system configuration issue

[DasFox]

Since VirtualBox has supported Unix/Linux I'm not sure why support for being able to resize the console has not been made available, since the size of the console screen can be as big as the monitor you are using on your host system.

Most people might be using Unix/Linux under X, but there are many times with these systems and in many situations where X might not be used.

Right now as it stands if you are not using X and you are just using the console you are stuck with a very small screen size, somewhere around 300x300 big and this is just to small to be functional to use in many situations.

I truly hope this project will please look into this situation to see what can be done to be able to make the screen size larger. Today with High Definition leading the way, many people are using larger sized monitors and we come to expect being able to use something like this with a bigger view to it.

If Unix/Linux systems can certainly display the console to whatever sized monitor you are running on the actual host system, then there certainly must be a way to have this work in VirtualBox also.

I've attached a screen shot taken on a 15" laptop to give you an idea of how small we are talking about.

So please imagine that this is how big of a monitor you have on a computer, that's probably a 5"-6" screen, then you get an idea of how difficult that probably is to try and work with and let me tell you it is and it's not fun at all.

It also doesn't matter what version of Unix/Linux you run, when it comes to the console they all give the same sized screen, I've run several versions of Linux and Unix guests on VirtualBox all with this small sized console screen.

Scaling the screen is not an option I like at all, it makes the fonts look warped and distorted. Changing the resolution on a screen size this big is not a good option either, we are talking extremely small text size to then read, I've tried this and it's not good.

We just need the developers to figure out a way to be able to have the screen size larger is all.

I hope there is a way the VirtualBox team can make this happen sometime this year, I can't tell you how bad I need this support for the work I do with VirtualBox and how difficult it's making things, having this size to work with.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing the thoughts of the developers on this.

[Michael Thayer]

I'm not quite sure what you want here. VGA text modes have a fixed resolution due to hardware constraints. We emulate VGA-compatible hardware so those constraints apply to us too. VirtualBox supports a number of different VESA resolutions, and you can even add your own. This is described in the User Manual. What the guest system does with those graphics modes are up to it, and if you want larger fonts then you have to find a way to make the guest use larger fonts. (As I said, the font size in text mode is limited by hardware.) You can also look at e.g. connecting a guest serial port to a host pipe and doing something with that on the host, or ssh-ing into the guest. You have already said that you don't like scaled mode, which is the normal solution to this problem. I can't immediately think of anything else we could do with a reasonable effort, especially given that no one else is asking about this (at least not to us).

[DasFox]

The title says; Can't Resize Console Windows...

I'm sorry I thought I made it clear that it would be nice if the VB Team can figure out a way so that the console windows can be made bigger...

A 320x320 window to work in a console at the command trying to see the system, files, etc., to work with is like next to impossible...

This is why I said, if Linux from the hardware can do this, then there must be a way for the VB team to figure out how to have this work as well...

THANKS

[Michael Thayer]

Replying to DasFox:

The title says; Can't Resize Console Windows...

I'm sorry I thought I made it clear that it would be nice if the VB Team can figure out a way so that the console windows can be made bigger...

You did make that clear, but I thought that I also made it clear that that is a rather vague task description, that the most obvious way of doing it (scaling, which is in any case what modern high-resolution physical monitors do in hardware) is already implemented, and that doing anything more is very low down our priority list, so that even if you put in some work and think about how this can be done (rather than asking us to "figure out a way" we are not likely to implement it unless it requires a very minimal effort (and of course will not have any bad side effects).

This is why I said, if Linux from the hardware can do this, then there must be a way for the VB team to figure out how to have this work as well...

For a start you could look at how to get Linux to do what you want using the existing hardware. This should be doable without any changes to VirtualBox at all.

Sorry if that sounded a bit harsh, but we have a small team, and while we do want to support non-paying users as well as possible and make the product as good as possible for them we are generally forced to decide rather ruthlessly what we will and won't fix and implement.

[DasFox]

Hi, no worries and I apologize, it looks like with Grub and Lilo you are suppose to be able to adjust the VGA modes and it will get you a bigger console, I've had some other Linux users tell me they adjusted both of these boot loaders and it worked for them and gave them a bigger screen size...

THANKS

[Michael Thayer]

Great. I will close this ticket then.