Setting status to wont-fix as I don't see anything I could do for now.

thx && regards,
-mika-

Sorry, headache with vesafb-tng was just too big for my taste. According to 
http://dev.gentoo.org/~spock/projects/vesafb-tng/changelog.php I don't think 
the situation changed. Switching *again* from vga= to video=... is nothing I 
want to do again, sorry.

http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~baker/devices/lxr/http/source/linux/drivers/video/vesafb.c#L349
http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~baker/devices/lxr/http/source/linux/arch/i386/boot/video.S

Maybe vesafb doesn't even use a "mode" at all.  See the first link.  That's
worse than I thought.  If so then fbset is returning bogus information supplied
by vesafb.c.

The answer then is vesa-tng which has improved (?) since grml's problems with
it.  Note the copyright on vesafb.c line 7, 1998, really old.

Ok, I don't think that I can do anything for you regarding this VESA problem. 
If you have any news or think I can do anything for you please let me know. In 
the meantime I'm setting the status of this bugreport to deferred.

thanks,
-mika-

Thanks for asking, mika.

Yes, I get the same refresh figure; no, vesafb.txt cannot help; no, fbset cannot
help.  Fbset will not change the fb mode because vesafb driver only supports
VESA BIOS Extension 2.0 not VBE 3.0.

Only grml can change the vesafb driver mode(s).  They are compiled-in, AFAIK,
with vesafb driver.  (Maybe a .h file has the timing values?  The grml mode is
not listed in /etc/fb.modes.)

VESA standards are not secret, but they cost money.
http://www.vesa.org/Standards/summary/2004_10.htm
http://www.vesa.org/Standards/summaries.htm

"Display Monitor Timings (DMT) are a list of VESA standard pre-defined timings
which are commonly used within the Computer industry."
http://www.nvidia.com/object/advanced_timings.html
Manufacturers standardize on them.  They even advertise compatibility with VESA
timings.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/video/27vnj/ge/specs.htm
(Auflösungen)

Above ~75 Hz the DMT no longer apply (?) and then it's Generalized Timing
Formula (GTF).  (I am not sure about differences.)

We miss ~3 console lines in vesafb, at top of screen.  It's very annoying.  X11
still works because we can set timing mode in xorg.conf.  We can't change fb
mode for vesafb driver.  We can't use another fb driver, because of nVidia
conflicts.

Existing infrastructure - hmm, in this case, the word "decrepit" might fit. 
Like an old bridge.  The vesafb driver is growing old, and not many Linux people
look at the code any more.  That is my impression.  But everybody uses it,
especially text users.

A clue to "decrepit" is the lacking error when you change fb mode.  Since vesafb
can't change mode, it should report an error, or fbset should.

This is the extent of my knowledge.  I do not have VESA documents.  Someone at
Debian should have a copy.

First of all, just for the record - 'fbset -i' reports the following for the
fb1280x1024 bootoption (which does nothing else than using vga=794) inside
VMware as an example:

mode "1280x1024-77"
    # D: 131.096 MHz, H: 80.328 kHz, V: 76.649 Hz
    geometry 1280 1024 1280 1024 16
    timings 7628 160 32 16 4 160 4
    rgba 5/11,6/5,5/0,0/0
endmode

Frame buffer device information:
    Name        : VESA VGA
    Address     : 0xf0000000
    Size        : 5242880
    Type        : PACKED PIXELS
    Visual      : TRUECOLOR
    XPanStep    : 0
    YPanStep    : 0
    YWrapStep   : 0
    LineLength  : 2560
    Accelerator : No

Mark, you are talking about the 76.649 Hz? I assume the options mentioned in
http://lxr.linux.no/source/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt won't help you, right?

"The wish item is to alter fb1280x1024 to match standard timing" - I don't think
we have a chance to change that. We just use existing infrastructure and the
usual way of using that (vga=794). Mark, are you getting the same values as in
above output?

LCD monitors auto-adjust if video uses standard timing.  Grml fb1280x1024 uses
nonstandard timing.  The mode reported by "fbset --info" does not exist in
/etc/fb.modes or any standards.

Framebuffer is VBE 2.0 so it cannot change modes like VBE 3.0.  It can be
impossible to get the console output centered properly.  A few lines at top of
screen are lost.

The most standard timing is 60.020 Hz vertical refresh.  It is old, but the most
common.  A faster refresh standard is 75.025 Hz.

The wish item is to alter fb1280x1024 to match standard timing.  Since LCD
monitors are indifferent to refresh, it does not hurt to use standard timing
values.  Example, see table on page 50:
http://www.samsung.com/at/products/monitors/tftmonitors/971p.asp