RE: Trouble trying to start gdm - (follow up to help configuring an HIL mouse on an HP 715)
Hi Grant,
Thank you! That was the cause of this problem. (I had selected 24 bpp,
instead of 8).
But, I still can't get the HIL mouse to operate at all, nor the keyboard to
work properly. By now, I have done many re-installs with various kernel
versions and I have tried various keyboard and mouse settings in the
/etx/X11/XF86Config-4 file, to no avail. (The kernels I have tried are
vmlinux-2.4.17-32, vmlinux-2.4.18-32,
vmlinux-2.4.19-32 and vmlinux-2.4.20-32. And the XF86Config-4 file settings
I tried are those in the web pages at
http://lists.parisc-linux.org/pipermail/parisc-linux/2002-June/016757.html ,
ftp://ftp.parisc-linux.org/kernels/712/XF86Config-4.Hildebrandt and
variations thereof).
The closest I got was using vmlinux-2.4.19-32 and an XF86Config-4 file with
keyboard and mouse settings very similar to those at the
ftp://ftp.parisc-linux.org/kernels/712/XF86Config-4.Hildebrandt page, except
I did not have the lines - since my keyboard is not German:
Option "XkbLayout" "de" and
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
Under these conditions, my keyboard worked sometimes correctly (but
intermittently): i.e. sometimes - after rebooting - I would find that I
could type correct characters at the GDM prompt, and I could even login
correctly into the GDM desktop but, I could never get the mouse to work at
all, so the GUI was essentially useless. So I could only get out of that
situation by telneting into the HP715 Linux OS, from another machine, in
order to control it or reboot it. Most often, though, with the same kernel
and XF86Config-4 file, the keyboard (and mouse) would not work at all when
the machine displayed the GDM prompt. (Notice that this is quite different
from the original problem I had with the vmlinux-2.4.17-32 kernel - in that
case, the keyboard always worked, predictably, but generated wrong
characters for every key).
With the vmlinux-2.4.18-32 kernel I got similar results as with the
vmlinux-2.4.19-32 - though I never observed the intermittent behavior I
describe above - i.e. in this case the keyboard never worked at the GDM
prompt (but perhaps I didn't try to reboot enough times, since even with the
vmlinux-2.4.19-32 kernel, it only worked occassionally).
I could not get kernel vmlinux-2.4.20-32 to work at all in my machine - it
always stops with a "kernel panic" very early in the boot process.
So, I am now almost certain that I am dealing with a subtle bug, which
apparently other people haven't encountered (or else, there is an
undocumented setting that makes the HIL keyboard and mouse work properly).
I know it's not my keyboard, mouse or other hardware, since my machine
always works correctly and reliably when booted to various versions of
HPUX - from another internal hard drive and from external disks.
Therefore, I am about to give up on this machine, unless I get a brilliant
tip from the debian-hppa@lists.debian.org list.
Best regards,
Jaime
P/S: By the way, reinstalling the kernel was the only way I was able to
solve the problem I mentioned in a previous email, where I would get a
"Choose your current network-environment !" blue screen every time I booted
with vmlinux-2.4.19-32, but I couldn't proceed past that point, because
neither the mouse nor the keyboard worked, and networking wasn't yet
enabled.
-----Original Message-----
From: Grant Grundler [mailto:grundler@parisc-linux.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 10:42 PM
To: Jaime Ash
Subject: Re: Trouble trying to start gdm
On Wed, May 28, 2003 at 09:18:57PM -0700, Jaime Ash wrote:
> (--) Depth 24 pixmap format is 32 bpp
> FBINPUT_VSCREENINFO: Invalid argument
You want to look at "fbset -i" output and use
*only* those settings in your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file.
I thought the older boxes only support 8bpp graphics (not 32bpp).
Well, I know there are 24bpp cards available as well but
don't recall if those work under stifb.
Look at ftp://ftp.parisc-linux.org/kernels/712/XF86Config-4.Hildebrandt
for an example of what the 715 needs. That one might even work
if you were using PS/2 mouse/keyboard. If someone has a better
sample XF86Config-4 file that works on 715 w/HIL, I'd be happy
to store that on ftp.p-l.org under kernels/715/.
hth,
grant
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