On 6/11/2010 7:04 PM, Long Wind wrote:
My reason for using old s/w doesn't matter There are plenty of reason for running old s/w that's why archive.debian.org exists not only to offer sarge but potato and rex!
Yes. We don't need to know specific reasons. However, just knowing, as an example, that you only have 32M of memory, would tell us that a suggestion to only run 2.6 kernels would not be helpful and to skip that line of thinking.
I personally have not run a 2.4 kernel since 2.6 was released, so I cannot help there (my memories are fading). I did some Googling and found that you are not alone in having problems, but a random check of a few sites revealed that every person required a different solution, so I must fall back on general suggestions.
I don't suppose you are having a difficulty with your BIOS? On older computers, the AGP aperture had to be set correctly. Also: under Sarge, is the agpgart driver set up properly?
Sometimes a scrambled screen is a hardware problem, and sometimes it is a memory problem.
If all else fails, I used to have some success when compiling the kernel myself, rather than using a "stock" kernel. This is a "blue sky" suggestion, it may not be helpful.
Did you mean Etch with 2.4 kernel is not working, but it works in Sarge, and Etch with 2.6 works? Thus it is the combination that doesn't work? Then it is a function of of X under 2.4? Have you looked in X-related forums and lists? Have you looked in ATI-related lists and forums? Have you tried searching for similar issues under (*gasp*) other Linux distributions? Have you looked in HP forums?
Good Luck!