I upgraded a working Redhat 9 installation (linux-2.4.20) to
linux-2.6.0-test4. When I boot, I see the "Uncompressing Linux..." message,
but then the screen goes blank. I know the system did not crash because I
can blindly login and shutdown.
My previous kernel boot parameters included "vga=773" to give me 50 lines on
my laptop display (a Dell Latitude C400). If I remove "vga=773" and add
"video=vga16:off", then everything works correctly! If I include both
"vga=773 video=vga16:off", then I get the blank boot screen again.
Why does "vga=773" work with linux-2.4.20, but not linux-2.60-test4? Why
does linux-2.6.0-test4 require "video=vga16:off", but linux-2.4.20 does not?
thanks,
chris
Chris Peterson wrote:
> Why does "vga=773" work with linux-2.4.20, but not linux-2.60-test4? Why
> does linux-2.6.0-test4 require "video=vga16:off", but linux-2.4.20 does not?
IIRC, 'vga=' parameters > 256 are handled by the VESA driver.
Try posting both .config files if enabling CONFIG_FB_VESA doesn't work
with vga=773.
-C
As Charles suggested, here are my .config files for my linux-2.4.20-8
(Redhat 9) and linux-2.6.0-test4 builds. CONFIG_FB_VESA is enabled for 2.6,
but vga=773 still does not work (and video=vga16:off is still needed, unlike
2.4). I am using a Dell Latitude C400 laptop, which uses an Intel i810 video
card, which only recently been supported by Redhat 9 and XFree86.
I've also tried Redhat's arjanv's linux-2.6 RPMs, which include the
following known problems for the AGP modules. The AGP problem definitely
affects my laptop because I just "modprobe intel-agp" before startx will
work. Could this same AGP problem be causing my vga=773 problems?
Known quirks
------------
* XFree86 vs AGP
The kernel agp modules got split into per chipset modules; the auto-load
mechanism of XFree86 in RHL9 isn't yet adjusted to this split. You can get
it to work by hand by doing a "modprobe intel-agp" (if you have an intel
chipset of course) before starting X.
chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Peterson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 8:48 PM
Subject: PROBLEM: blank boot screen on linux-2.6.0-test4 (with workaround)
> I upgraded a working Redhat 9 installation (linux-2.4.20) to
> linux-2.6.0-test4. When I boot, I see the "Uncompressing Linux..."
message,
> but then the screen goes blank. I know the system did not crash because I
> can blindly login and shutdown.
>
> My previous kernel boot parameters included "vga=773" to give me 50 lines
on
> my laptop display (a Dell Latitude C400). If I remove "vga=773" and add
> "video=vga16:off", then everything works correctly! If I include both
> "vga=773 video=vga16:off", then I get the blank boot screen again.
>
> Why does "vga=773" work with linux-2.4.20, but not linux-2.60-test4? Why
> does linux-2.6.0-test4 require "video=vga16:off", but linux-2.4.20 does
not?
>
> thanks,
> chris
>
On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 11:52:17PM -0700, Chris Peterson wrote:
> As Charles suggested, here are my .config files for my linux-2.4.20-8
> (Redhat 9) and linux-2.6.0-test4 builds. CONFIG_FB_VESA is enabled for 2.6,
> but vga=773 still does not work (and video=vga16:off is still needed, unlike
> 2.4). I am using a Dell Latitude C400 laptop, which uses an Intel i810 video
> card, which only recently been supported by Redhat 9 and XFree86.
>
> I've also tried Redhat's arjanv's linux-2.6 RPMs, which include the
> following known problems for the AGP modules. The AGP problem definitely
> affects my laptop because I just "modprobe intel-agp" before startx will
> work. Could this same AGP problem be causing my vga=773 problems?
No. vesafb should be fine. i810fb may have interactions with agpgart,
but you can't load that without intel-agp anyway, so thats not your
problem.
Dave
--
Dave Jones http://www.codemonkey.org.uk