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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 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 hard-
	    ware  state.  This will be sent to or read from stdin. This informa-
	    tion 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  man-
	    agement  state of your screen. "On", "off", "standby", "suspend" and
	    "reduced" are acceptable further options and determine  which  state
	    will be activated.

     vbemodevbetool 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.

     vgamodevbetool will set the legacy VGA mode to the following numeric  argu-
	    ment.

     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, execut-
	    ing  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. This command takes an optional argument which is
	    the location of a file containing a ROM image. If provided, this im-
	    age will be mapped to the c000 segment and used instead of the  sys-
	    tem's video BIOS.

     vgastate
	    vbetool will enable or disable the current video card. On most hard-
	    ware,  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 inte-
	    ger

	    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.

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://source-
     forge.net/projects/lrmi/) and XFree  (http://www.xfree86.org).  It  is  re-
     leased 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+15.1.quarterly>

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