Adam Aube wrote:
Maurice helwig wrote:I have a Shuttle MN31N mothetboard with integrated sound and video ( Nvidia GeForce 4MX ) which works well on Windows.Knoppix 3.3 live distro worked well so I decided to try Debian Linux.The Install went well and the base system worked. Installing X windowing system also went well until it tried to find my video card. After 3 attempts at initializing it indicated that it could not find a video card on the system.Which release - Stable (Woody), Unstable (Sarge), or Testing (Sid)? If Stable, try getting the new Debian Installer and installing Testing instead - it has better hardware support than Stable. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/Since Knoppix is a Debian variation I thought that Debian would find my video card without any trouble.
Knoppix has much newer software than does Debian Stable, which is probably what makes the difference, as Adam implies above. However, rather than starting over, just duplicate your "stable" lines in /etc/apt/sources.list file (exepct for the "security" line) and change the reference to "stable" in those duplicated lines to "unstable" (or "testing", if you prefer), and then do "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get upgrade". This'll give you a newer version of X (and all the other upgraded packages).
You can also run "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" to tinker with the settings, such as using "vesa" instead of the "correct" driver for your card, or changing the color depth, etc.
PS. Adam reversed the names above; Unstable=Sid (the kid next door in the "Toy Story" movie who was always breaking things; some folks tend to think of it as "Still In Development"), and Testing=Sarge, which when it's "ready" will become the new Stable.
-- Kent