Screen messed up, and
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Screen messed up, and
started by: KeatonTech
Posted by KeatonTech on Nov. 05 2006,01:49
Hey everybodyI've been wanting to get my old Toshiba 3015CT working for awhile, but I hate Windows. So I installed DSL off a USB pen drive using the Floppy Boot Loader. I used DSL-3.0.1-embedded.zip for the pen drive and Bootfloppy-USB.img for the Floppy. It booted fine, but the screen is all green and yellow, with lots of white bands. Has this happened before? What did I do wrong?
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Nov. 05 2006,05:28
See xsetup.shOr check the fb/vga bootcodes.
Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 05 2006,05:50
If you hate windows, I suggest trying to run DSL natively rather than embedded. It will run much faster and you won't need windows.
Posted by KeatonTech on Nov. 05 2006,15:59
Uhh, what xsetup file?It's not actually running embedded, it's running off a USB pen drive using a boot floppy. I found a page somewhere in the wiki that said to use the embedded file for USB booting, should I try the non-embedded file?
UPDATE: No, I tried the non-embedded file with the exact same result.
Posted by roberts on Nov. 05 2006,16:04
At the very first boot prompt from floppy:boot: dsl xsetup
Also at the first boot prompt, you can press F2 or F3 and try booting with other vga codes as well.
Posted by KeatonTech on Nov. 05 2006,16:18
Thanks, I'll try that.
Posted by KeatonTech on Nov. 05 2006,16:23
Hey thanks, that fixed the problem, even though it didn't ask me anything about my screen.
Posted by GXMAN on Nov. 08 2006,13:44
| Quote (roberts @ Nov. 05 2006,11:04) |
| At the very first boot prompt from floppy: boot: dsl xsetup Also at the first boot prompt, you can press F2 or F3 and try booting with other vga codes as well. |
Ok, when I type 'dsl xsetup' at the boot prompt (booting from USB thumb drive) I get a screen with "You passed an undefined mode number" and then a list of 6 modes in COLS and ROWS. I thought COLS and ROWS were for spreadsheets
Seriously, none of these choices which range from 80x25 to 80x60 work correctly nor give me anything but 8 colors.
I somehow have a hard drive boot of DSL working in full res (1280x1024x32) but cannot get that same thing to work from CD or USB boot drives. We're thinking of making DSL into a small, fast thin client type of application, but if it can't detect basic video settings other than prehistoric ones, it will shoot this project down
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Nov. 08 2006,14:36
You probably have an non-standard monitor, or video.Is that 'working' hard drive installation on the same machine that you are running the livecd/usb tests?
fb and vga= bootcodes might be of interest... but for better video you'll probably need specific drivers and the full xf86 server.
Prehistoric? The VESA standard is still here.
Posted by GXMAN on Nov. 08 2006,14:57
| Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ Nov. 08 2006,09:36) |
| You probably have an non-standard monitor, or video. Is that 'working' hard drive installation on the same machine that you are running the livecd/usb tests? fb and vga= bootcodes might be of interest... but for better video you'll probably need specific drivers and the full xf86 server. Prehistoric? The VESA standard is still here. |
The monitor is a Dell 1280x1024 LCD and the computer is a Dell GX150 (hardly non-standard stuff)
The working HD installation is on the same computer but running through VMware Server so the driver would be different. However, the machine video is a pretty generic built in Intel card, so detection shouldn't be this difficult. It seems that DSL just can't detect it correctly.
Posted by Juanito on Nov. 08 2006,16:01
I'm guessing that when you say "...the machine video is a pretty generic built in Intel card" that you have something similar to the Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics in my Dell D400.If this is what you have, you could try XFree86.dsl with a suitable XF86Config-4 file - I can post the setup that works for me to get 1024x768 24 bit colour if you have the same (similar) integrated graphics.
Note also with my D400 the maximum I can manage with the built in DSL X manager is as follows:
855GM
-----
0x0101 640x480x8 pseudocolor +0x0200=0x0301=769
0x0103 800x600x8 pseudocolor +0x0200=0x0303=771
0x0105 1024x768x8 pseudocolor +0x0200=0x0305=773
0x0111 640x480x16 truecolor +0x0200=0x0311=785
eg - vga=785 will give 640x480x16
Posted by GXMAN on Nov. 08 2006,17:15
The problem was corrected by upping the "Onboard Video Buffer" in the BIOS of the Dell machine from 1mb to 8mb. Really odd though that this default setting works fine with Windows, but nothing I could pull out of the forums would allow me to get a usable color pallette on DSL. Anyway, changing it from its default setting to 8mb has made DSL a happy camper.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Nov. 08 2006,18:07
Ah, that would explain the screen being messed up - not enough memory. Good find on your fix!In windows you probably had the intel drivers loaded so it would be different - unless you loaded XF86 like what Juanito posted.