The keyboard/display driver provides the interface to the video card. evgainit informs the keyboard/display driver which video card is installed and should be rerun each time the system is booted.
In many cases the keyboard/display driver can determine which card is being used and therefore this command need not be run. For example, you don't need to run evgainit for the following cards:
evgainit must be run, however, for the following cards before attempting to use resolutions greater than 640x480 pixels. The following list shows the card-type argument value that should be used for each video card:
| Card type | Video Card(s) |
|---|---|
| vega | Video 7 800x600, Video 7 VEGA VGA Adaptor |
| stbga | STB VGA Extra/EM, Extra/EM-16 |
| sigma/h | SIGMA VGA/H |
| pvga1a | Paradise PVGA1A |
| dell | Dell VGA |
| vram | Video 7 VRAM VGA |
| orvga | Orchid Designer VGA, Designer 800 VGA, ProDesigner VGA |
| tvga | Tseng Labs |
| orvgani | Orchid Designer, ProDesigner VGA (non-interlaced) |
| tvgani | Tseng Labs (non-interlaced) |
| gvga | Genoa Super VGA |
| pega | Paradise PEGA2 |
| gega | Genoa EGA |
| fastwrite | Video 7 FastWrite VGA |
| won | ATI VGA Wonder |
| pvga1024 | Paradise 1024 |
The command can only be run with appropriate privilege.
This command can be run automatically from the inittab file (see inittab(4)) or can be run by a user with appropriate privilege after each system reboot.