Laptops :: Fujitsu Monte Carlo

Greetings everyone,

Well, I've been hoping to resurrect this old beast that I've had laying around for my girlfriend's daughter, but so far I've had no luck getting the Xserver to start.

Straight from the User's Guide:

Fujitsu Monte Carlo Notebook Model # FP07002A
Intel Pentium 54CSLM 120 MHz w/L1 cache & PCI Bus Architecture
16MB RAM onboard +16MB DIMM, total 32MB RAM
2MB Video RAM
TFT active-matrix display
256K colors
800x600 pixels resolution
VGA/SVGA compatible

X failed to start from the CD, throwing the 'Can't locate module fb0' error that's been mentioned several times in the forums, but I figured I'd try installing it to the HD anyway and go from there.

HD install went fine and the machine boots with no problems as far as I can tell. I login as user 'damnsmall' (I've also tried as root), I get the 'Welcome To DSL Damn Small Linux' ASCII graphic and warranty disclaimer, then the following:

Quote

Using X resolution from previously selected settings. If you want to change the resolution, run 'xsetup.sh' as super user. XIO:  fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"         after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

I've tried Crotalus' lilo.conf edit, using 'vga=771' (for 800x600 @ 256K colors per the listed specifications) as well as all lower and even one higher resoultion, all to no effect. (Yes I run lilo before rebooting.)

The only difference I note is that if vga is set to anything other than '=normal', then the following comes up at the beginning of the boot:

Quote

LILO 22.5.7.2 Loading Linux.............. BIOS data check successful You passed an undefined mode number. Press <RETURN> to see video modes available, <SPACE> to continue or wait 30 secs

Trying the different modes available thru <RETURN> has no effect on X starting, only on the console resolution; whether I change it or hit <SPACE> and continue, the boot proceeds as normal to the login prompt.  Logging in again produces the Welcome and then the same error message as before.

Running xsetup.sh and switching to Xvesa causes the machine to immediately lockup when I try to restart X with 'startx'; it makes no difference what resolutions I try, the result is the same. Only a hard restart is possible.

I would love to get this one working; it would make an 8-year-old REALLY happy. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

Quote (ke4nt1 @ April 29 2004,18:46)

Try to find out what brand of chipset your video card uses.

Hmmm yes... that seems to be proving rather difficult (of course that useful bit of info is absent in the User's Manual). Nothing at Fujitsu's website as far as I can tell, and the information seems to be equally lacking online.

Anyone know of a utility that might be able to ID the video hardware, that'll run off of a single floppy?  

Thanks again...

lol... I've been Googling for two+ days now.   Not to mention combing thru these forums. Like I said, info's scarce on this particular laptop...

I only bring it up now after exhausting the various suggestions I've found, in hopes of maybe providing some additional insight.

I've been thru the output from dmesg a couple times now and see nothing about the video hardware. I can post it here in case I missed something if you like, but not until tomorrow; I need sleep... *yawn*