Re: video on laptop - Compaq Armada 1750
On Saturday 02 November 2002 11:08, David Pastern wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> Hopefully simple question that sort of has me stumped. I have a Compaq
> Armada 1750, that i've installed Debian Woody bf24 kernel onto. I've
> chosen the ATI module for Xfree86 (which is the correct module I believe).
> Interestingly at bootup the LCD screen flashes white, making text or
> anything for that matter impossible to read. I shut the laptop down at
> this point as I believe it will damage the video card/LCD screen. Now i'm
> not sure why it does this, and would love an explanation (or a pointer to a
> website etc that specifically explains it). I end up booting linux as:
>
> linux video=vga16:off
>
> That fixes the issue. I'm not sure what all of that line actually means, I
> can guess the vga refers to vga = 16 bit, I have no idea what the off
> means. My question is how do I automate this? It becomes tiresome to have
> to do this each time I boot the machine up. I've had a look at lilo.conf
> and it has a line for "vga=". I've read the man pages for lilo, lilo.conf
> and also read the BootPrompt -HOWTO, and also a few linux books I have
> lying around here at home, but none of them clearly indicate what I should
> do, or how. As far as I can see, if I set vga in lilo to "vga=ask" it will
> prompt me for video settings the next time I boot up. I'm not sure if
> that's what I want and i'm hesitant to try it without some good
> confirmation that i'm heading in the right direction.
>
> My lilo file is a standard lilo file on a fresh debian install. Laptop is
> not on the network and will not easily be placed on the network here (I
> seem to have lost the dongle for the pcmcia network card and despite 6
> months of looking have not found it). I've had a look at the XF86Config-4
> file and it looks OK to my eyes. Here are details of the monitor section
> from said config file:
>
> Identifier "Generic Monitor"
> HorizSync 28-48
> VertRefresh 43-72
> Option "DPMS"
>
> Here are screen details:
>
> Section "Screen"
> Identifier "Default Screen"
> Device "Generic Video Card"
> Monitor "Generic Monitor"
> DefaultDepth 24
> SubSection "Display"
> Depth 1
> Modes "800x600" "640x480"
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Depth 4
> Modes "800x600" "640x480"
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Depth 8
> Modes "800x600" "640x480"
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Depth 15
> Modes "800x600" "640x480"
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Depth 16
> Modes "800x600" "640x480"
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Depth 24
> Modes "800x600" "640x480"
> EndSubSection
> EndSection
>
> I hope that helps, if anyone wants more information let me know and i'll do
> my best to provide it (above was typed out not copied/pasted).
>
> Interestingly i've had Redhat 7, 7.1 and 7.2 and Suse 8 pro on this said
> laptop previously without a single issue with X or any need to edit the
> XF86 config file.
>
> One other thing and this perplexes me - Linux will either NOT run 1024*768
> on this laptop (Redhat 7, 7.1 and 7.2) or will run it (Suse 8 pro) but the
> display is larger than the screen size (sort of hard to explain). Now i've
> had Windows 2000 and Windows 95 on this very same laptop and have ran
> 1024*768 without a single issue. So it's not a hardware limitation. I can
> only think it's a limitation of X. I have told the machine to use 1024*768
> (with Redhat it just caused the X server to crash, in fact linux wouldn't
> even boot into a working system as it crashed as well [until I killed the X
> server with ctl alt backspace]). Suse 8 pro will do it, but the display is
> larger than the screen size as mentioned before and makes it very awkward
> to navigate around the desktop. Anyone got any ideas (please no "go back
> to windows" replies)?
>
> Dave
video="vga16:off" disable the framebuffer (a mean to use the console in
graphic mode; which allow to see the linux pinguin).
To disable it permanently put
append="video=vga16:off"
just after image= ...
in /etc/lilo.conf
(I have also had to disable it for a laptop computer)
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