CentOS 5 console customization

(Actually, these should work on any other CentOS version as well :) )

Installed another minimal CentOS 5, this time, on Odin, my trusty Compaq 1200 povera beauty.
The install was amazinlgy fast, it took less than 10 minutes, mighty fast considering that the laptop has a Celeron @ 700 MHz with 300 MB of RAM.

These are a couple of thing I did after finishing the install, to make the box more confortable.

- Enable high resolution console :

As root, edit the file '/etc/grub.conf', and add 'vga=XXX' to the line that begins with kernel. On Odin, I have to use '788'.
Get other values here: VGA Boot modes to set screen resolution
I have read some reports that this does not work on CentOS 5, but I had no problems with the stock kernel from the CentOS 5 install CD (2.6.18-92.el5).


- Console font :

I don't like the default font -I don't like it at all, but that has nothing to do with CentOS per se, the default console font on all the distros I have used sucks-.
So I have set it up to use the console font I love, the same one I use on the Ubuntu's console.
As root, edit the file '/etc/sysconfig/i18n', and change:

SYSFONT="latarcyrheb-sun16"

to look like this

SYSFONT="Lat2-Terminus16"

To load the new font, as root again, issue:

/etc/init.d/functions start

This will load it only on the TTY you are executing it. After a reboot, it will load the new font on all the TTYs.
There are more fonts on the '/lib/kbd/consolefotns/' directory.


- Set cursor to a blinking block :

I love the prompt cursor to blink, and also, to be a blocky, massive thing, not the feable semi-hypen that it is by default.
Take a look at the Cursor Appearance in the Linux Console doc, to see what you can do.
On my case, to transform the default underscore blinking cursor onto a blinking block cursor, and to make it happen on all TTYs -even after a reboot- had to do this, once again, as the root user:

/bin/echo -e '\033[?6c' >> /etc/issue