Grub2 and Vertical Monitors

Question

I was able to snag a Dell 1703FP Monitor and was very pleased to discover that I could rotate the monitor by 90 degrees clockwise (or pi/2 if you prefer radians). I have been able to get the initial boot console text oriented correctly by changing my grub.cfg boot arguments:
linux /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=fc122248-ba87-4c61-89e6-ad24f22bfcbc ro quiet fbcon=rotate:3
This, however, does not work on Grub itself. Grub remains in a horizontal orientation. Although this isn't such a big issue (after all, I only see Grub each time I reboot, and only for 3 seconds), it's just one of those "little things" that irks me. I have tried setting the framebuffer resolution in grub.cfg as such:
set gfxmode=1024x1280x32
This does somehow set the resolution correctly, (this is a 1280x1024 monitor in horizontal mode) but it is still not orientated to my needs. Is there any settings that I am missing to rotate Grub's output, or is this a feature that is not yet implemented into Grub? Is there an alternative bootloader that supports rotated monitors?
This thread is very similar, except it is more concerned with SLiM login manager (which I have the same issue with, too, but that can be saved for a later day.)
Just in case, video card is GeForce FX 5200, and here is my 10-monitor.conf:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device"
Driver "nouveau"
Option "RandRRotation" "on"
Option "Rotation" "CCW"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen"
Device "Device"
Monitor "Monitor"
Option "RandRRotation" "on"
Option "RandRRotation" "CCW"
EndSection

Answer 1

Lastebil wrote:
Spent some basic time with this, exploring the possibilities with the vbe graphics modes and the "vga video driver," read some config details about booting into a rotated buffer / different graphics buffer, but finally settled on looking directly at grub2's main documentation for some hints.
It's there I realized that since grub2 is targeted for many platforms, not just intel, there are some stumbling blocks; for example one of the non-intel consoles only supports ascii.  Serial can have one of three methods for drawing, etc.  In short: this would be very specific to the vbe driver, and it's not in the code.  I don't know that there would be that much use for it, given that there _is_ support for theming.
I also considered trying some of the fbcon ideas, but then realized that is only the console after booting - and I don't think there's a fbcon console driver in grub2 based on what I looked at codewise.  (I could be wrong, as something led me that way for a few "patch commits" but I eventually decided it wasn't really adding the fbcon interface, just launching to it with gfxpayload.)
I'm not sure what it will take to make a theme that is "rotated."  It may also suffer from "90 degree keyboard syndrome" (where you press the "down" key, and the cursor moves to the right.) Still, I'd think that is the faster way of doing this, rather than trying to add this support to the VBE code.
Since I spend very little time on that screen in reality, I think I can live with it for today.  (I'd been wondering this for some time but hadn't attempted to fix it until today.)
My goodness! Someone has REALLY been doing his/her homework! I kinda feel bad that you are doing this much work, especially for such a small quirk. But if it satisfies you, I applaud thee
Lastebil wrote:Since I spend very little time on that screen in reality, I think I can live with it for today.
I can totally agree with you there. Since I'm in the middle of academics I haven't found that much time to be tinkering. That being said, when I do get free time, I'd start looking at the grub code itself, as I have found no way using kernel settings or other programs (fbcon, xrandr), so I'd assume changing grub code itself would be the only solution. This seems like a daunting task, especially for someone like me who is not a professional programmer by any means, but it seems like a fun project that would give me the incentive to learn about low-level programs like this (I consider myself a Linux hobbyist, calling me a scripter would be stretching it.)
If you do decide to continue working on this (by no means am I demanding you to) I'd love to see what kind of stuff you are doing and learn from someone who (clearly) knows his stuff. Thanks for your input!