Old compaq armada screen playing tricks on me?
Forum: Laptops
Topic: Old compaq armada screen playing tricks on me?
started by: zigurana
Posted by zigurana on June 14 2005,00:29
Hey there!I've got a problem that I havent seen around here, and that worries me a bit...
the story:
I downloaded the CD and played around a bit, just to see if I liked the 'feel' of this tiny distro. And I did!
So, just tonight I did a HD install on my old armada 1573 (yes that was about the year of its birth) and everything was going fine and smooth, just as I expected.
But then:
All the lines of returning messages (loaded this, initiated that...) suddenly come to a halt. So I wait, after all this old machine is only a pentium I, with and outstanding 48 megs of memory.
No avail, so I hit enter, just to try. And voila! the screen moves up, well one line that is. After 20 or so more return and lines i find out what I was supposed to do, fill in a password! and no, enter would not do, the second time it would however (rendering an weak password error), some more errors, ending in a "too bad you exceeded your maximum amount of tries (5), so we're closing down, see ya!"
so concluding/translating:
During startup, my screen is like 20-30 lines behind. This prevents me from answering any urgent questions, like "login:| " DSL might have. So I can't enter DSL (or the GUI at least). As an indirect result of this, I messed up all the passwords you might have filled in during your first startup.:(
the questions are:
-how do I fix the screen thing? (I guess its something with the fb800x600, but as I am in HD install, I can't seem to find a way to enter this.)
-how to repair my passwords? mere 'enters' do not suffice no.
thanks you all!
Posted by tempestuous on June 14 2005,02:52
The default screen resolution is 1024x768, and obviously your laptop doesn't support this (neither does mine) so you can't see the lower part of the display.You need to change the "vga=" boot parameter in your lilo bootloader - manually at first, so that you can load DSL, then you can make it permanent.
At the bootloader prompt, press the tab key (I think) and you will be offered the opportunity to add additional boot parameters. Add "vga=788" without the quotation marks. This specifies 800x600 16 bit color.
As DSL loads you should now see the prompts about passwords. If you have inadvertently added a password, then you might not be able to continue, so I suggest you re-install to HD.
Once DSL is loaded, edit the /etc/lilo.conf file. There will already be a line that reads "vga=791" change it to 788, save.
Then run the command "lilo". Now it's permanent.