vbetool
uses lrmi in order to run code from the video BIOS. Currently,
it is able to alter DPMS states, save/restore video card state and
attempt to initialize the video card from scratch.
OPTIONS
vbetool
takes the following options:
vbestate
vbetool
will use the VESA 0x4f0f extensions to save or restore hardware
state. This will be sent to or read from stdin. This information is
highly hardware specific - do not attempt to restore state saved from
a different machine. This command will not work unless you are at a
text console, as it interferes badly with X.
dpms
vbetool
will use the VESA 0x4f10 extensions to alter the power management
state of your screen. "On", "off", "standby", "suspend" and "reduced"
are acceptable further options and determine which state will be
activated.
vbemode
vbetool
will get or set the current VESA mode. "get" will return the current
mode number on stdout - "set" will set the mode to the next argument.
vgamode
vbetool
will set the legacy VGA mode to the following numeric argument.
post
vbetool
will attempt to run BIOS code located at c000:0003. This is the code
run by the system BIOS at boot in order to intialise the video
hardware. Note that on some machines (especially laptops), not all of
this code is present after system boot - as a result, executing this
command may result in undefined behaviour. This command must be run
from a text console, as it will otherwise interfere with the operation
of X.
vgastate
vbetool
will enable or disable the current video card. On most hardware, disabling
will cause the hardware to stop responding until it is reenabled. You
probably don't want to do this if you're using a framebuffer.
vbefp
vbetool
will execute a VESA flat panel interface call.
panelid will provide information about the panel
panelsize will provide the size of the panel
getbrightness will provide the current screen brightness as an integer
setbrightness accepts an integer as an argument and will set the screen brightness to that
invert will invert the colours of the screen
BUGS
Switching dpms modes may interact badly with X on some systems.
The vbestate command may behave in strange ways.
The post command may result in the execution of arbitrary code that
happens to be lying around in the area where chunks of your video BIOS
used to be.
The VESA specification does not require that "vbemode get" provides
the correct mode if the current mode was set via some means other than
the VESA BIOS extensions.
The VESA flat panel interface ceased development at the proposal stage.
panelid and panelsize will work on many machines, but the other arguments are
unlikely to be implemented on available hardware.
