Laptops :: DSL on Dell Latitude LM P133 - X problems



I tried running DSL 0.6.3 on a Dell Latitude LM P133, but X did not work correctly.  The CD drive is not bootable, so I am using the boot floppy.  I have tried the fb800x600 option at the boot prompt, along with the vga=771 option, but I still get bad colors (usually only blue and black) when X starts.  X does start, and I can tell that programs are running and menus are active, but with the colors so messed up, it is not usable.

The laptop uses the Neomagic NM2070 chip, which has only 896K of video memory (and no MMX).  The best resolution possible with this chip set is 800x600 with 256 colors.  I know that it is possible to get X working, because Feather Linux appears to run X correctly.  At the boot prompt in Feather, I enter "knoppix lang=us vga=771", and in the X configuration screens, I select Xfbdev as the driver.  I compared the files XF86Config and Xfbdev in both Feather and DSL, and they are identical.

What other options can I try to get X working correctly?

For what it's worth, I ran "fbset -s" in both Feather and Damn Small Linux.  Both give the same result:
Quote
mode "800x600-75"
   # D: 48.001 MHz, H: 46.876 kHz, V: 75.121 Hz
   geometry 800 600 800 600 8
   timings 20833 96 32 16 4 96 4
   rgba 6/0,6/0,6/0,0/0
endmode

It doesn't mean a lot to me, but it might be useful information for an expert.


original here.