Re: Installing Etch with GUI on T20

[john gennard <joney@clara.co.uk>]

Florian Kulzer wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 10:06:12 +0000, john gennard wrote:
>
> > Florian Kulzer wrote:
>
>
> [...]
>
>
> > > What is your graphics card? Please find the relevant lines in the output
> > > of "lspci" and post them here (lines mentioning "VGA", "graphic(s)" or
> > > "display").
> >
> > The only reference to VGA etc is:-
> >
> > ------------
> > 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV 
> > (rev 11)
> > ------------
> >
> >
> > > We also need more information about your xorg.conf. The output of the
> > > following command should be a good start:
> > >
> > > awk '/Section "(Input)?Device"/,/EndSection/' /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> >
> > -------------
> > Section "InputDevice"
> > 	Identifier	"Generic Keyboard"
> > 	Driver		"kbd"
> > 	Option		"CoreKeyboard"
> > 	Option		"XkbRules"	"xorg"
> > 	Option		"XkbModel"	"pc105"
> > 	Option		"XkbLayout"	"gb"
> > EndSection
> > Section "InputDevice"
> > 	Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
> > 	Driver		"mouse"
> > 	Option		"CorePointer"
> > 	Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/mice"
> > 	Option		"Protocol"		"ImPS/2"
> > 	Option		"Emulate3Buttons"	"true"
> > EndSection
> > #Section "InputDevice"
> > #	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
> > #	Driver		"synaptics"
> > #	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
> > #	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
> > #	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
> > #	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
> > #EndSection
> > Section "Device"
> > 	Identifier	"S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
> > 	Driver		"savage"
> > 	BusID		"PCI:1:0:0"
> > EndSection
> >
> > ------------
>
>
> There might be a problem with the savage driver and your card.
> SuperSavage/IX is mentioned as supported in "man savage", but I cannot
> find your type number. Maybe somebody else knows more about this
> specific card.
>
> You could try to use the "vesa" driver instead, to see if it works at
> all. (This driver is very basic and will not offer hardware
> acceleration.)
>
>
> > When trying to solve this problem myself, I 'disabled' the
> > Trackpoint in Bios (it was by default set at 'auto disable'
> > which I understand means it becomes disabled if an external
> > mouse is attached), and commented out the 'Input Device'
> > section in xorg.conf. This changed things and I went direct
> > to a prompt, but an error message had been recorded indicating
> > that the relevant entry in 'ServerLayout' also needed commenting
> > out - this I did and the error message 'No devices detected'
> > came up. As I said, I can now use a non-GUI installation by
> > booting into 'single user mode' - trying a normal boot freezes
> > everything.
>
>
> Normally when X is started during boot by [xkg]dm and it fails then you
> are just returned to the command prompt. If your box locks up completely
> then there might be something really wrong with the graphics driver or
> something is seriously wrong elsewhere. What is the last message that
> you see before your system locks up?
I can't tell you that now. Earlier today I deleted Etch with Kde
and replaced it with Etch having Gnome just to see what would happen.
The result is the same, the box locks up and the logged error 
messages are identical, but I cannot see the last booting message for 
it's too quick and the screen immediately blanks out.

I bought this old laptop as it had XP installed and I had received a
large amount of research data created by using Excel - it's still in
the first partition. I'll have a look tomorrow to see what Graphics
driver Windows used and get back to you.

Again, thanks.

Regards,

John.