I discovered a quirk with my T400 laptop. Hopefully solvable.

The native default resolution for the laptop monitor is 1280x800 (16:10 ratio). At that resolution I found the fonts too small and causing eye strain. Therefore I have the following boot parameter:

i915.modeset=1 video=1024x600

I boot to run level 3. Screen resolution (and hence, font size) is as I intended.

I log in and manually run pm-suspend to place the laptop into sleep mode. I then resume the device.

The resolution reverts to the default 1280x800 screen size and the fonts are way small again.

To add to the strangeness, I then start and exit X, and the screen resolution returns to 1024X600.

Any ideas how to fix this quirk?

Thanks.

I would avoid running a lower resolution and instead choose a larger font using the setfont command.

A workaround would be to use a bigger console font with KMS (as does Slackware-current's installer).

For instance you could try a Terminus font (shipped in Slackware-current or available through slackbuilds.org).

Sizes available are 6x12, 8x14, 8x16, 10x18, 10x20, 11x22, 12x24, 14x28, 16x32.

EDIT TobiSGD was faster

To me, changing the font is indeed a work-around. I'd rather fix the quirk if possible.

I tried other fonts, including the Terminus font, but prefer the default font.

I would see it as workaround to run a LC display not at its native resolution, but that is of course up to you.
Have you searched the log-file for errors?

This may not work , and if it doesn't, I'm out of ideas, but try this:
I won't swear that the i915 module is unloaded on suspend, but it looks as if maybe that's the case. If indeed it is, then that means it's reloaded on resume, which would make the above modprobe config useful for you.

Thanks. I tried several variations and every time udev complained that "video" was not recognized. I tried building i915 into the initrd too. Odd that 1024x600 is restored by starting and exiting X.

Yeah, thinko on my part. I had in my head that the "video" parameter went with the i915 module, but it doesn't. I think this is worth mentioning to the kernel drm folks - seems like this should work as you expect without restarting X.

Me too. I got so focused on associating the "video" parameter with "i915" that the distinction did not dawn on me for a while.

A modestly annoying quirk because I prefer to boot into run level 3. I have the lid and Fn-F4 mapped to sleep. Invoking either without logging in or starting X triggers the quirk. Nothing crashes but a classic example of a "paper cut."

I never liked the way KMS uses absurdly tiny fonts. Too much web design and software development is performed on monitors as big as a TV and seldom tested on basic monitors.