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VBETOOL(1)			 User Commands			    VBETOOL(1)

NAME
       vbetool - run real-mode video BIOS code to alter	hardware state

SYNOPSIS
       vbetool	 [[vbestate   save|restore]|[vbemode  set|get]|[vgamode]|[dpms
       on|off|standby|suspend|reduced]|[post		  [romfile]]|[vgastate
       on|off]|[vbefp panelid|panelsize|getbrightness|setbrightness|invert]]

DESCRIPTION
       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  at-
       tempt 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 re-
	      store 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", "sus-
	      pend" 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  lap-
	      tops),  not all of this code is present after system boot	- as a
	      result, executing	this command may result	 in  undefined	behav-
	      iour.  This  command must	be run from a text console, as it will
	      otherwise	interfere with the operation of	X. This	command	 takes
	      an  optional argument which is the location of a file containing
	      a	ROM image. If provided,	this image will	be mapped to the  c000
	      segment and used instead of the system's video BIOS.

       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	 argu-
       ments are unlikely to be	implemented on available hardware.

AUTHOR
       vbetool	was written by Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org>, based on
       code  from  read-edid   by   John   Fremlin   <john@fremlin.de>,	  LRMI
       (http://sourceforge.net/projects/lrmi/)		  and		 XFree
       (http://www.xfree86.org). It is released	under the  terms  of  the  GNU
       General Public License.

vbetool	0.2		       31 December 2004			    VBETOOL(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vbetool&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>

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