Toshiba 410cs screen colors
Forum: Laptops
Topic: Toshiba 410cs screen colors
started by: pipergeek
Posted by pipergeek on April 26 2004,15:26
I have DSL running on my Toshiba Satellite Pro 410cs, I have successfully loaded it to the hard drive and can boot it up from there up into text mode without problems. I can actually run X Windows as well but that is where my problem is, the problem I am having is that the # of colors at the 800x600 screen resolution isn't what it is supposed to be.The problem this causes is that graphics, like the baby tux that comes up on the desktop and the DSL graphics that come up in Dillo when you first boot are almost unrecognizable. The other problem is that the background of dillo and other windows is black, making text extremely hard to read. it is essentially unusable.
The number of colors at 800x600 seems to be 8 or 16, the machine is capable of 256.
I have had Win95se working on this machine recently and it was able to display 800x600x256 with no problems. I reformatted the hard drive and intend to have only Linux on this box.
I am only able to get X up using the xvesa server, I did try Crotalus' suggestion about changing the VGA=771 (plus other numbers) and adding the fb800x600 line in lilo.conf , but it will not start using xfbdev at all.
I have done extensive reading in these forums and extensive google searches, and have tried numerous things but have been unable to get a higher number of colors to work under X. I have been messing about with this problem for about 5 nights and have finally concluded that I have exhausted all possible avenues that I can think of and am now asking for help.
Details on the machine,
Toshiba Satellite Pro 410cs
Pentium 90
40MB RAM
2Gig hard drive (I upgraded it)
Dual Scan Passive Matrix screen
C&T CT65548 Video Controller Chip
1mb VRAM
max internal screen resolution 800x600x256colors
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading my message.
take care,
Kevin
"pipergeek"
Posted by ke4nt1 on April 26 2004,20:18
I have similar issues with my Toshiba Laptop 110csWorks fine with win98 , colors look great.
When booting with dsl , I never see the penguin, even after trying fb800x600.
Of course, it won't even load the fb driver, only the xvesa.
It ALMOST looks normal in 4 bit mode, but no graphics other than the slit and the bar.
All other programs complain about not having 8 bit.
When i choose 8 or 16 bit, I get a blue background with black windows and programs. Very distorted.
(get this , the built-in accupoint nub works great! )
(and the pcmcia slots/NIC work fine too! )
40 megs ram - 810 meg HD - Pentium 100
- Floppy ONLY - NO USB - NO CDROM
Other than X, works fine business..
Here are the specs from Toshiba
VIDEO
Video Memory: 4Mbit standard DRAM(5V) 1 MB
Speed (fast-page mode supported) 60ns
Controller Chip C&T CT65548
Bus Type Vesa Local Bus
Graphics Accelerator BitBLT support
Color Palette 262,144 colors
Internal Resolution 800 x 600 x 256 colors
Smaller Image 640 x 480 x 256 colors
Virtual Display Mode 1024 x 768 x 256 colors
External Resolution
640 x 480 16.7M colors/16.7M colors
800x600 64K colors/64K colors
1024 x 768 256 colors/256
Refresh Rate(Vert./Hor.) 75Hz/60Hz
Any Ideas on how to get the FB800x600 on boot?
I think it would work from there....
73
ke4nt
Posted by pipergeek on April 26 2004,20:27
| Quote |
| Any Ideas on how to get the FB800x600 on boot? I think it would work from there.... 73 ke4nt |
I added fb800x600 to the append line in lilo.conf per instructions found elsewhere in these forums, I was still unable to get the fb server to startup. See if it works for you. Let me know.
thanks,
Kevin
"pipergeek"
Posted by pipergeek on April 27 2004,13:05
Thanks for reading the thread folks, unfortunately I will not be able to test or report results of any fixes for this problem while using DSL. Because last night I loaded Vector Linux v 3.2 and chose the older of the X servers and it all loaded up and looks nice. The screens look as nice as they ever did on this dual scan screen laptop.So if you have the same problem that I had in this thread I would suggest trying Vector Linux! Don't waste your time on Feather Linux it has the same exact problem that DSL did on this laptop.
take care,
Kevin
"pipergeek"
Posted by ke4nt1 on April 27 2004,18:41
Last night I tried several other vga=### options on boot.None worked.
I was able to get a HDinstall to work, and the laptop runs fine.
Currently using either the xvesa in 4 bit mode ( NO Graphics ),
or the xvesa in 8 bit mode - horrible reversing of colors.
My idea being that with the HDinstall, I can edit the lilo.conf
to my liking for further experimentation. I was reading
on another forum that lilo will take other commands for
"buggy bioses" and other such graphic card anomalies.
I'll get back to you with more info. I still think this laptop
should be able to do 800x600x256, just like in win98.
73
ke4nt
Posted by ke4nt1 on April 27 2004,19:57
In looking further into KDrive and Tiny-x servers, thereseems to be an Xchips server, which should work
similar to the Xvesa and Xfbdev servers, that is
a specific server for the Chips and Technologies
video cards.. I don't know if this needs to simply be
added to DSL , or if building the Kdrive server from
sources with a string or define enabled is the trick.
Perhaps someone with some experience building Kdrive
from sources could point us in the right direction?
Or, is this server availiable from the Kdrive in DSL?
73
ke4nt
Posted by cbagger01 on April 28 2004,02:12
If you want to try a quick fix, download the already-compiled Xchips server here:< http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/kdrive/8.0/ >
and replace your simlink for X with a link to the path where you saved the Xchips file.
Another way to do it is to edit your xsetup file and change "X" to "/home/damnsmall/Xchips", for example.
Good Luck.
Posted by cos on May 11 2004,19:41
i download xchips server but after i change xsetup file when i run xsetup.sh the xchips server dont start. could you please help me to start the xchips server ? 
Posted by cbagger01 on May 11 2004,23:12
Make sure that your saved Xchips file is set to allow executable permissions.Type this in from an X Terminal:
| Code Sample |
| sudo su cd /your_save_directory_name_goes_here chmod 755 Xchips exit |
Posted by danr1357 on May 14 2004,03:26
I edited .xserverrc and replaced references to X with Xchips. I couldn't edit Xsetup because my install is frugal and it won't let me change it. I think editing .xserverrc should work but it fails with an error about suid when I do a start x. I did a 775 chmod and a chgrp to root as well as a chown to root all on Xchips. What can I do?Dan
Posted by WW. on May 16 2004,14:27
The problem described by pipergeek and ke4nt1 appears similar to the problem I am having with an old Dell Latitude LM P133 (40 Meg ram, Neomagic NM2070 video chip, 800x600 with 256 colors). pipergeek said "don't bother with Feather Linux", but in fact I found that the X server Xfbdev works with my old laptop when I use Feather Linux. At the boot prompt (I boot with the floppy), I enter "knoppix lang=us vga=771", and during the X configuration, I select Xfbdev. As I mentioned in a different thread, I haven't been able to get X working in DSL, even when booting with the fb800x600 option.ke4nt1, you might try Feather Linux to see if X works.
Posted by joker on June 07 2004,18:15
Compaq Armada 1520 is having the same color bit issue.. 4 bit works but can't get most X apps to work.. I know the thing can handle 800x600 at a b bit color depth, I have tried everything listed in these forums and nothing works!! I could not get the Xchips server to run. Any other suggestions that have not already been mentioned... I do appreciate any info anyone can give me!!!