Re: Kernel panic on PCI video card with 2.6.x on Dell Dimension 2300

["John Stoffel" <john@stoffel.org>]

>>>>> "Tarek" == Tarek Soliman <tsoliman@zeusmail.bounceme.net> writes:

Tarek> I have done this and even dist-upgraded to etch. Every time I
Tarek> put the PCI card back, it becomes the source of monitor output
Tarek> during boot but then the booting fails. I am looking for a way
Tarek> to figure out at which part the booting fails but I don't know
Tarek> where kernel panic logs get stored (if at all).

If you have a second computer, then what you can do is setup a serial
console and capture the bootup messages on the second computer.  A
real godsend.  You can even setup things so that you'll see messages
on both screens, though after a point, the console messages will only
goto the second screen.

This is what I use in my grub setup:

  title           2.6.20-rc6
  root            (hd0,0)
  kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.20-rc6 root=/dev/sda2 ro console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600n8 earlyprintk=serial
  boot


Messages end up on the serial console no matter what.  Once you get
this information, you'll be able to figure out better what's going on
here.

Hmmm... have you tried pinging the box after bootup?  Is it on the
network?  Is it just that the screen is disabled or non-responsive,
not that the system hasn't booted up?  

Try booting without starting X (or GDM/XDM) and seeing what happens
then.  

Good luck,
John