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Topic: A conundrum, Boot time video drivers

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GeoffUK

Group: Members
Posts: 4
Joined: Nov. 2005

Posted: Nov. 10 2005,00:41

Many things in life puzzle me, but here (possibly) is an opportunity to make things clear.

I've got a half working DSL onto an old IBM Thinkpad, through forums and thought I'll get the other half ...... hopefully!

Currently it's booting from a created bootdisk from within another DSL host, and a DSL image on the hard disk.

My conundrum is........ during boot sequence, all text is displayed perfecly clearly and full screen. Also the DSL/Tux?Credit Card logo is displayed in all it's glory. All this is lost as soon as the system reaches "X". So what am I actually running during the boot sequence ??

I guess It's some varient of Dos and inbuilt bios vga drivers but I'd like to know.

SaidinUnleashed Offline

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Posts: 1428
Joined: Mar. 2004

Posted: Nov. 10 2005,01:15

at the boot: prompt, type

Code Sample

fb800x600

then choose Xfbdev as your X server when the xsetup.sh script runs, and your issues will be gone.

And DSL is most definately NOT DOS.

It is Linux.

-J.P.

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Unleash the power of the TILDE~~~

GeoffUK

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Posts: 4
Joined: Nov. 2005

Posted: Nov. 10 2005,09:19

Thanks for the reply.

My question was not intended as a "How can I.....?" but was more like "What's happening ?".

The puzzle is not unique to DSL, and I have doubts about it being a Linux issue at heart.

For example, another system, will go through the motions of loading SUSE Live complete with progress comments and graphical splash screens then fall down at the last hurdle with a "Sync out of range" error. So, if Suse isn't natively compatible with my monitor, how does it manage to display the boot sequence graphics? Similarly, the laptop is happy with DSL graphics during boot but needs coaxing back to life afterwards.

Being curious, I'm wondering what video drivers are used during the start up sequence and I'll probably go on to be curious as to why they can't be used after instal.

doobit

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Posts: 912
Joined: July 2005

Posted: Nov. 10 2005,13:50

Your computer is having trouble with something called X. X is not a video driver, but a video server that can be configured for almost any video card. Do as SaidinUnleashed said and you will most likely see the GUI, depending on if you have enough RAM to support it.
There are many graphical user interfaces for X. DSL uses FluxBox.

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GeoffUK

Group: Members
Posts: 4
Joined: Nov. 2005

Posted: Nov. 10 2005,15:50

Again, I thank you for your reply.

Perhaps I'm not explaining myself very well.

This is just something that puzzles me.

I can, through cheet codes and/or persistant instal get around/through this issue and I'm not looking for a "do this and it'll work" kind of answer... the system works, I'm replying through DSL and looking at what I'm typing through X.

What puzzles (read intrigues) me, is the way reasonably high resolution graphics can be displayed during the boot sequence. That is before "X" is unleashed.

During boot on the laptop I see the DSL/Tux/Creditcard logo. Similarly, during SUSE boot I see rolling meadows and a chameleon. I'd like to know how these images are being displayed.

7 replies since Nov. 10 2005,00:41

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