Changing resolution of your Ubuntu Server command line in VMWare Fusion

UPDATE: I’ve since been told this doesn’t work for all users. I’ve done a bit more searching and the easiest solution is to simply use Mac OSX Terminal at full screen :)

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Once again I find myself blogging about something that took way too long to solve. If you want to change the console / cli / command line resolution of your Ubuntu Server running in VMWare Fusion then this is what you need to do:

Edit the grub template file:

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

Add the desired resolution from the table below to the file:

    | 640x480  800x600  1024x768 1280x1024
----+-------------------------------------
256 |  0x301    0x303    0x305    0x307
32k |  0x310    0x313    0x316    0x319
64k |  0x311    0x314    0x317    0x31A
16M |  0x312    0x315    0x318    0x31B
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINE="vga=0x317"

Trigger an update to all the grub config files by issuing the following:

sudo update-grub

Check it works :)

sudo reboot

You will get a message saying that “vga=” has been depreciated and that you should use GFXPAYLOAD instead. Unfortunately you cannot easily add that param to your /etc/default/grub file without changing a whole bunch of other stuff.

See here for more information:

Link 1

Link 2

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Linux . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Changing resolution of your Ubuntu Server command line in VMWare Fusion”

  • Big Mac Says:
    February 11th, 2010 at 5:36 am

    NO It didn’t work; and now nothing comes up. Yor a peace of shit.

  • Brady J. Frey Says:
    June 15th, 2011 at 1:33 am

    On the new Ubuntu’s, it’s a little different. Like you said, edit:
    etc/default/grub

    But now comment out the line
    GRUB_GFXMODE

    and make it something like:
    GRUB_GFXMODE=1024×768

    It’s human readable, so pick your resolution. Once done, you can:
    update-grub

    and
    reboot

    as normal. Rinse and repeat for the resolution of your choosing!

  • Pierce Says:
    July 12th, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    Came across this in a Google search. Kinda wish I’d read the whole article before jumping into it. Yeah, it killed my Ubuntu server VM display, luckily I was able to ssh into the server and undo what I did and rebooted and it all worked again. Anyone trying this, your mileage may vary. I would do as the author suggests at the end. Just SSH into the server and fullscreen your terminal.

  • Aji Setiabudi Says:
    July 20th, 2011 at 2:42 am

    These are mine: 4 servers (Ubuntu Natty), 1 KVM & monitor
    In /etc/default/grub, uncomment:
    #GRUB_TERMINAL=console
    #GRUB_GFXMODE=640×480

    Restart twice (LoL O_o), then it works. I don’t use update-grub tough.

  • John NM Says:
    September 2nd, 2012 at 8:51 pm

    This works well, but all it seems to do with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is change the Grub so that it is in the video mode you enter. Once Grub exits, it appears that Ubuntu resets the video mode again.

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