With Debian 7.0/wheezy getting closer to release time, it was time to try it out. It felt like a good idea to rather install Debian 7.0/wheezy on a new server than to stick to the current stable release, as it would save me upgrade time later. As with Debian 6.0/squeeze, it seems real hardware text modes are not really favoured in Debian 7.0/wheezy either. To use hardware text mode in Debian 7.0/wheezy, add “16” to the linux and initrd lines in /etc/grub.d/10_linux:
linux16 ${rel_dirname}/${basename} root=${linux_root_device_thisversion} ro ${args} initrd16 ${rel_dirname}/${initrd}
circa lines 115 and 121. Also make sure you have the following in /etc/default/grub:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vga=0xF07" GRUB_TERMINAL=console
I opted for 80×60, ie. 0xF07. Other text modes as per svga.txt:
80x25 - 0xF00 (3840) 80x50 - 0xF01 (3841) 80x43 - 0xF02 (3842) 80x28 - 0xF03 (3843) 80x30 - 0xF05 (3845) 80x34 - 0xF06 (3846) 80x60 - 0xF07 (3847)
This time I also had to tweak the module configuration by creating /etc/modprobe.d/textmode.conf:
blacklist drm blacklist i915 blacklist radeon blacklist ttm
Lastly, make sure grub is updated:
# update-grub
And reboot. Viola, text mode goodness again.