Bug#317544: debian-installer: Using ALT-Fn keys during framebufer install messes up screen making installer unusable
Package: debian-installer
Severity: important
During my first attempt to install Debian on my system, the installer
defaulted to using a framebuffer mode. During installation(specifically
when I was supposed to enter the host name, even though I dont think
this matters) I tried to use Alt-F2, Alt-f3 to see the debug messages.
Unfortunately, the screen messed up totally, the cursor shifted to a top
right part of the screen and my input was getting displayed there. There
were red blocks everywhere. After entering the hostname, i couldnt see
anything happening, the whole screen was filled with random blocks etc.
I had to abort installation. I read up on the bootup parameters, and
switched framebuffer off during install, and the installation went off
flawlessly this time.
I wasn't using any boot parameters at all. In the second attempt, I only
used the parameter to set framebuffer off. So this was using the default
2.4 kernel.
sandip@pluto:~$ lspci|fgrep -i vga
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000 AGP 8x] (rev c1)
Monitor: LG Flatron E700S
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-686
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
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