Bug#604101: installation-reports: Broken textmode installer display on EEE PC 701SD

[Ferenc Wagner <wferi@niif.hu>]

Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org> writes:

> Christian PERRIER, le Sat 20 Nov 2010 08:19:31 +0100, a écrit :
>
>> Jeff, le Fri 19 Nov 2010 20:22:40 -0500, a écrit :
>>
>>> Later, I tried pressing TAB to change boot options and discovered that a
>>> "vga=" option was being added by default. Removing this option allowed the
>>> installer to proceed.
>>> 
>>> Strangely enough, once the installation completed, the default options allow
>>> the system to boot with no display probems AND the console font changes
>>> successfully (although I still have an 80x25 console.) Therefore, it
>>> appears that the installer's default options are more aggressive than the
>>> default options of the installed system. This seems backwards, because
>>> someone choosing the textmode installer wants the most conservative display
>>> settings to maximize the probability of success.
>
> The boot menu item does not say "textmode installer". To really get text
> mode installation, see the F8 help screen: vga=normal (to avoid the
> vga=788 parameter), and fb=false to really have a textmode installer
> (but then not be presented languages like chinese).
>
>> Reassigning to debian-installer as this is about boot options passed
>> to the kernel.
>> 
>> Dunno if we should drop the vga= setting or not....
>
> I think that at best we just need to document that "Installer" is not a
> pure textmode installer choice, possibly by adding a "Textmode install"
> item in the boot menu (using fb=false vga=normal)

Something like that would work for grub, which has no graphical splash
screen but too late for isolinux on the optical installer media:
cf. #509662 for example.
-- 
Thanks,
Feri.