User Feedback :: A video problem and comments



Congratulations on a pretty useful liveCD.

I just ran through a build and hit one problem, which I suspect is down to my video card, an nvidia GeForce of some type.  Boot from CD with no parameters works fine up to the point where it starts X; I can just see the two xauth lines flash up, then the screen goes black.

Booting using failsafe works, and I seem to be able to choose any setting combinations I like; using vga=normal or vga=795 (for example) brings up the X config dialog, and eventually a black screen.  I'll have to work my way through the hardware cheat codes next.

I notice that there isn't a forum section for basic booting problems like that - I had to puzzle through the USB and HD install sections and the HOWTO section before I decided to post here.

Another thing is that I was confused by the discussions of USB install, HD install, frugal and so on; perhaps that is something that could be mentioned in the installation section of the docs?  There is also no mention that I found that the iso builds a liveCD as opposed to an installation CD; I assumed that was the case, and luckily I was right.

Next up for me is a USB install; my (only 2yo) hardware doesn't boot from USB, so I'll need to create a floppy - however, they are obsolete in this household, so I may well be perverse and create a boot CD to boot to USB!  Once I figure out how, that is.

Once again, thanks for a great distro.
Quote (paullynch @ June 28 2005,20:48)
I just ran through a build and hit one problem, which I suspect is down to my video card, an nvidia GeForce of some type.  Boot from CD with no parameters works fine up to the point where it starts X; I can just see the two xauth lines flash up, then the screen goes black.

Booting using failsafe works, and I seem to be able to choose any setting combinations I like; using vga=normal or vga=795 (for example) brings up the X config dialog, and eventually a black screen.  I'll have to work my way through the hardware cheat codes next.

Cheatcodes didn't help, but booting using fb1024x768 did - it was the nVidia card (probably a 5200, but I can't remember).
Nforce mobo?

If so, Xvesa works if you have nothing plugged into the onboard NIC.

No clue why.
Quote (SaidinUnleashed @ June 30 2005,17:59)
Nforce mobo?

I wish :).

No, it's an ASUS A7N8X-VM, with an older bios (so it doesn't boot USB).  I really need to upgrade the bios, but they only support upgrade from DOS.  Which wouldn't be a problem, except I don't have a floppy on this machine.  The devil is in the details.
Paul - booting from the usb with a cd is simple - you just use the dsl cd.. with this boot prompt:
dsl fromhd=/dev/sda1
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