Screen troubles during install

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Screen troubles during install
started by: sekyunseung

Posted by sekyunseung on June 19 2006,03:12

I am having a problem installing DSL to my laptop. Shortly after pressing [Enter] when the DSL screen appears after booting, the screen says 'you passed an undefined mode number' and gives the options to press [Enter] for mode number options or the Space Bar to continue. If [Enter] is chosen, then then it gives the mode options of 80x25, 80x60 and similarly, but it does not matter which one I pick (even if I were to just press Space Bar to continue), because the system boots, but then I get a screen that is a bright purple colour and it is impossible to see most text because it looks like there is a white mesh over the screen. I can make out the Planet Saturn in the background and a window with text in it. The only text I can make out (barely) in the window is <<Getting started DSL>> at the top and some kind of round image next to it. If I choose [F3] right after the CD boots, it gives a screen that says boot time vga options. I choose <<dsl vga=788>> for a 16 bit, 800x600 size monitor (usually what I have used with all of the other OS's I have used with the computer) and all I get is the same screen that is bright blue instead of purple.
Just in case there have ever been any problems with any of these, here is a nearly exhaustive list of details about the computer, download and burning to CD.
The Laptop is an IBM Thinkpad 380ED with 48MB memory, 166MHz processor, 2.5GB Hard Drive (most of my OS's have actually said it is a bit higher than 2.5, some as high as 3.0GB) manufacutred in 1997 or 1998. It currently runs Windows 98, is (according to a sticker near the battery) built for Windows 95, and in the past it has run Windows 2000 and SUSE Linux 7.3, the only problems being it was a bit slower than I would have liked and SUSE 7.3 took up a whole gigabyte. It has no internet connection and I do not intend for it to go onto the internet or any network.
I downloaded dsl-2.4-syslinux.iso from the Austrian site (the site was the first one that loaded quickly, and the DSL image for newer computers simply would not boot at all). The CD is a TDK CD-R created using the Sonic CD creator on a Windows XP computer.
What am I doing wrong? I looked all over the forums, and have not found a similar problem, but there is someone who posted with the exact same model asking about PCMCIA wireless cards, leading me to believe that it is possible to install DSL onto this model. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Posted by ZoOp on June 19 2006,07:26

Hi,
at prompt, try: dsl noacpi vga=788
I have had the same issue related to a problem with an old computer which works pretty good with win nt. It was my video card which was out. But this doesn't seem to be your problem.
good luck!
yours
z

Posted by sekyunseung on June 21 2006,21:15

Thanks for the suggestion, but pretty much the same thing happened. Also, I tried some of the other monitor types, and did not get any different results (haven't yet gone through all of them, but might do that soon) with and without noacpi. However, something interesting happened a few times, where after choosing the monitor, it will begin booting the system, but after some time, there will be several lines of text saying "cloop error...", after which it will go to the purple or blue screen again, or it will just stop booting. When I turn the computer off and repeat what I did to get a closer look at the cloop errors, it doesn't happen again.
I have not given up hope yet, since I went on to the IBM website and found that there is a BIOS update for this model, that includes video BIOS. I will try that and post the details of how it turns out.

Posted by cbagger01 on June 25 2006,19:18

Maybe this will help:

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....l=380ed >

Posted by sekyunseung on June 28 2006,20:52

Thank you! It worked this time. I did have to reboot a few times before I could get to the Xwindows, because I got the "cloop error", but now that the system has been installed, it runs perfectly every time I turn it on. Thanks again.