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[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

More experimenting confirmed that LILO boot is needed.

I had two computers which would not boot linux unless I either had DOS 7.1 
or put the kernel on the floppy disk, so I tried floppy-disk kernel, no 
help.


I experimented some more with loadlin and loop linux chrooted to ext2 
linux partition.

zgv:   svgalib does not work either.  I edited svgalib:

chipset VGA - scrambled.

chipset nothing or FBDev - 'vesafb does not support changing the video 
mode .... Segfault' (I had booted into framebuffer mode).

chipset VESA:  Illegal instruction (just like for Xvesa)

Then I tried the SVGA server and it loaded fine but crashed to a black 
screen on exit and I had to power off.

------
So I booted from BL3.32 floppy disk (it was lying around) with LILO:

Xvesa works perfectly, exits properly without crashing, lets me switch to 
other VTs while it is running (unlike the ATI Rage IIc in the eMachine).

I chrooted to ext2 BL3.40 where I have svgalib installed and tried zgv 
(with chipset still set to VESA):

chipset VESA:  svgalib:  FATAL internal error:  Set MAX_REGS at least to 
6268 in src/driver.h and recompile everything.

This was scary and nearly put me off using the computer.  VESA was 
supposed to work after LILO boot.  But this is clearly a screwy card.
With odd MAX_REGS, which must be causing the problem with Xvesa.  Perhaps 
Xvesa also needs recompiling for this card.

I remarked out the chipset VESA and let svgalib pick the driver.
zgv worked perfectly.

The busybox umount from BL3.32 won't umount anything I mounted, says it is 
still busy.

I need to learn LILO and should look up old postings.

This still does not fix the SCSI boot problem on the Compaq Deskpro.  If 
nobody has any suggestions I will try to add an IDE drive.  It is set to 
boot from SCSI drive and has only one DOS partition.  We have a SCSI 
CD-ROM burner and I was hoping to disable both IDE controllers.  This is 
the only one of four SCSI computers that would boot to DOS from SCSI.
Maybe LILO will boot to scsi linux on ext2?

Sindi