Baslinux mailing list

[David Moberg <davidjmoberg AT gmail.com>]

On 9/2/05, mikkel Meinike-Nielsen <mimeini AT linuxmail.org> wrote:
> I have an old laptop compaq contura 4/25c, i486, 25 MHz,
> 200 mb HD. and I have just installed it. It boots fine and fast. I have had
> mulinux on the same laptop and I was able to run X very slow with the VGA
> server setup. OK her is my problem. When I try startx I (after configure 480
> x 640, ps 2 mouse, 2 bottom.) get to messages that I don't have time enough
> to read, then I just get black screen even if I wait 5 min.

It appears that your laptop does not like Xvesa (the X server which is used in
BL3). I assume that your laptop's BIOS does not do VESA correctly, which Xvesa
needs in order to get a usable display.

> The only way out is ctrl+alt+del.

Does Ctrl+Alt+Backspace do anything? Can you see any messages on the screen
before the laptop reboots?

> I don't have any exact mode line for the monitor except that it is 28.3 MHz.

Fixed-frequency display, I guess. That number would be the only dot clock at
which the graphics adapter and monitor will operate. It's doubtful that the 
BL3
Xvesa will do that.

BTW, a quick google search found this modeline:

Modeline "640x480"       28.3   640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525

This will not work in Xvesa, but you should keep this, in case you should
ever need it to use a larger X server.

> the video chip set is the compaq avga
> chip. Is there any solution to this problem?

Since you say that it worked in muLinux with the VGA server (vga16?)
I assume that vga16 or xsvga will work in BL3. Can someone here post
directions for installing one of those in BL3? I have yet to try to
run full-size
X in BL3.

David