Re: [SLE] Blank monitor after switching between virtual consoles
On Tuesday 30 October 2001 22:47, Rafael Herrera wrote:
You may be booting with the frame buffer console turned on. Try editing your /etc/lilo.conf and set the value:
vga=normal
run lilo and reboot.
I have that line in /etc/lilo.conf already. Best regards, David List
Le Mercredi 31 Octobre 2001 05:16, David List a écrit :
On Tuesday 30 October 2001 22:47, Rafael Herrera wrote:
You may be booting with the frame buffer console turned on. Try editing your /etc/lilo.conf and set the value:
vga=normal
Try to comment out this line instead, I think it worked for me.
run lilo and reboot.
I have that line in /etc/lilo.conf already.
Best regards, David List
Best regards, David Garnier
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 09:04, David Garnier wrote:
Le Mercredi 31 Octobre 2001 05:16, David List a écrit :
On Tuesday 30 October 2001 22:47, Rafael Herrera wrote:
You may be booting with the frame buffer console turned on. Try editing your /etc/lilo.conf and set the value:
vga=normal
Try to comment out this line instead, I think it worked for me.
I have tried with and without the line. It doesn't make any difference. Best regards, David List
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 11:11, David List wrote: | I have tried with and without the line. It doesn't make any | difference. exactly the same symptoms here, also with a g-400. same thing happens when dumping out of X. in fact, i cannot switch to virtual console at all. if you turn up the brightness on the monitor, you'll see very narrow horizontal lines, as if a television set. i spent an hour on the phone with suse this evening trying to resolve this and other fatal installation issues. no joy, but they're going to have someone who has a g-400 try it out. i mentioned that this and other install/update issues had been mentioned on this list. they said they'd take a look. -- dep There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand; Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.
--- dep <dep@drippingwithirony.com> wrote:
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 11:11, David List wrote:
| I have tried with and without the line. It doesn't make any | difference.
exactly the same symptoms here, also with a g-400. same thing happens when dumping out of X. in fact, i cannot switch to virtual console at all.
Have you guys tried the Matrox/Linux support forum? http://forum.matrox.com/cgi-bin/mgaforum/Ultimate.cgi ===== -- -=|JP|=- Hit me! - http://www.xanga.com/cowboydren/ Jon Pennington | Debian 2.3 -o) cowboydren @ yahoo . com | Auto Enthusiast /\\ Kansas City, MO, USA | ICQ UIN 69 67 29 31 _\_V __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 20:53, Jon Pennington wrote: | Have you guys tried the Matrox/Linux support forum? just went there; saw nothing that seems pertinent to the fact that suse 7.3 seems to break stuff in re. g-400s and getting out of X. absolutely everything is broken -- can't get out of X, can't switch terminals, can't run sax2. i would have guessed it was an xfree-4.1 issue but for the fact that i've installed red hat 7.2, which also uses 4.1, uneventfully on this machine. and the g-400 is a pretty well-known card. (then again, the abandonment of XF86Setup in favor of all this flaky other stuff is something that still has me growling -- it always worked here.) -- dep There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand; Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.
--- dep <dep@drippingwithirony.com> wrote:
absolutely everything is broken -- can't get out of X, can't switch terminals, can't run sax2. i would have guessed it was an xfree-4.1 issue but for the fact that i've installed red hat 7.2,
The first thing that comes to mind is the kernel configuration, actually. Had your kernel been built with no frame buffer support but only the standard 386/VGA console, I don't think this would be an issue. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the solution is to disable MGA framebuffer support altogether. XF86Setup, IIRC, does not work with XFree86-4, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong; it never really worked for me with 3, either. ;) The recommended proceedure, if SaX variants don't work, is to use XFree86 itself for configuration: # XFree86 -configure This will dump an XF86Config file into root's home directory, which is probably all you need to start with. Edit to taste, copy to /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. This clearly doesn't *solve* your problem, but it'll give you a configuration start without SaX[null,2] mucking about with things. ===== -- -=|JP|=- Hit me! - http://www.xanga.com/cowboydren/ Jon Pennington | Debian 2.3 -o) cowboydren @ yahoo . com | Auto Enthusiast /\\ Kansas City, MO, USA | ICQ UIN 69 67 29 31 _\_V __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 21:28, Jon Pennington wrote: | The first thing that comes to mind is the kernel configuration, | actually. Had your kernel been built with no frame buffer support | but only the standard 386/VGA console, I don't think this would be | an issue. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the solution is to | disable MGA framebuffer support altogether. bingo! right answer! they had framebuffer support enabled in the kernel configuration for some insane reason. burning a kernel without it solved the problem. (this is gonna make life *really* interesting for people with g-400 cards who decide 7.3 is the time to give suse a try. what a friggin' disaster.) while i was at it, i grabbed the mantel 2.4.13 and built an athlon kernel that -- gulp -- works! -- dep There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand; Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.
On Thursday 01 November 2001 06:42, dep wrote:
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 21:28, Jon Pennington wrote: | The first thing that comes to mind is the kernel configuration, | actually. Had your kernel been built with no frame buffer support | but only the standard 386/VGA console, I don't think this would be | an issue. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the solution is to | disable MGA framebuffer support altogether.
bingo! right answer! they had framebuffer support enabled in the kernel configuration for some insane reason. burning a kernel without it solved the problem. (this is gonna make life *really* interesting for people with g-400 cards who decide 7.3 is the time to give suse a try. what a friggin' disaster.)
Are the SuSE people listening here? How about building a kernel that actually works with Matrox G400 cards. And do not forget to make a 2.4-SMP version also! Best regards, David List
It's exactly this type of attitude that makes companies like SuSE wonder what exactly they have to do to ever win. Why don't you go complain to Matrox and get them to make a card that doesn't blow up with frame buffer support. Why is it that one would ever think that SuSE should TAKE OFF a "feature" in the kernel. SuSE should in no way make 5 billion different kernels just to please this or that niche market. If one is going to purchase hardware that is not tolerant to a reasonable setting in the kernel then that is your choice and you should be willing to do what it takes to modify a standard kernel to make it work for you. Clearly since this problem is not being reported by every user using any video card on the market - frame buffer support is not something that breaks most systems. Take your complaints to Matrox - don't impose your buggy hardware needs on the rest of us. John W Higgins john@wishdev.com -----Original Message----- From: David List [mailto:david@davidlist.dk] Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 12:55 PM To: SuSE-Linux List Subject: Re: [SLE] SOLVED! Blank monitor after switching between virtual consoles On Thursday 01 November 2001 06:42, dep wrote:
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 21:28, Jon Pennington wrote: | The first thing that comes to mind is the kernel configuration, | actually. Had your kernel been built with no frame buffer support | but only the standard 386/VGA console, I don't think this would be | an issue. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the solution is to | disable MGA framebuffer support altogether.
bingo! right answer! they had framebuffer support enabled in the kernel configuration for some insane reason. burning a kernel without it solved the problem. (this is gonna make life *really* interesting for people with g-400 cards who decide 7.3 is the time to give suse a try. what a friggin' disaster.)
Are the SuSE people listening here? How about building a kernel that actually works with Matrox G400 cards. And do not forget to make a 2.4-SMP version also! Best regards, David List -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq and the archives at http://lists.suse.com
* David List (david@davidlist.dk) [011101 12:55]:
Are the SuSE people listening here? How about building a kernel that actually works with Matrox G400 cards. And do not forget to make a 2.4-SMP version also!
Yes. The latest I've heard from development is: Framebuffer support for G200/G400/G450/G550 boards is supposed to be automatically disabled as of 7.3 and other Matrox boards are used with 'Option "NoHal' Apparantly this board wasn't recognized as a G200/G400/G450/G550 -- can you please send the output of /usr/sbin/hwinfo --display to me and I'll forward it on to them. If /usr/sbin/hwinfo doesn't exist (it should) you'll need to install the hwinfo package. Thanks, -- -ckm
On Thursday 01 November 2001 22:14, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
The latest I've heard from development is: Framebuffer support for G200/G400/G450/G550 boards is supposed to be automatically disabled as of 7.3 and other Matrox boards are used with 'Option "NoHal'
Is that it? Do you mean that if I put that option in the XF86Config myself, it should work?
Apparantly this board wasn't recognized as a G200/G400/G450/G550 --
When I use sax2 it seems like the card is correctly identified.
can you please send the output of /usr/sbin/hwinfo --display to me and I'll forward it on to them.
Thank you very much. Hmmm ..... looking at the output, I see things such as "3D Support: yes". I am 100% sure that this option was disabled during the setup, as I did not want to have disturbing elements. It seems to me that there is an issue with the setup of G400 cards here! Best regards, David List Here is the output: 24: PCI(AGP) 100.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA) [Created at pci.64] Unique ID: VCu0.rV909tonEz7 Hardware Class: graphics card Model: "Matrox Millennium G400 MAX/Dual Head 32Mb" Vendor: 102b "Matrox Graphics, Inc." Device: 0525 "MGA G400 AGP" SubVendor: 102b "Matrox Graphics, Inc." SubDevice: 2179 "Millennium G400 MAX/Dual Head 32Mb" Revision: 0x04 Memory Range: 0xf6000000-??? (rw,prefetchable) Memory Range: 0xf4000000-??? (rw,non-prefetchable) Memory Range: 0xf3800000-??? (rw,non-prefetchable) Memory Range: 0xf5ff0000-??? (ro,disabled) IRQ: 11 (515145 events) I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw) Driver Info #0: XFree86 v4 Server Module: mga Color Depths: 8, 16, 24 Extensions: Options: Packages: Driver Info #1: XFree86 v4 Server Module: mga 3D Support: yes 3D Script: switch2xf86_glx Color Depths: 16 Extensions: glx, dri Options: Packages: xf86_glx Driver Info #2: XFree86 v3 Server: SVGA Color Depths: 8, 16, 24, 32 Extensions: Options: Packages: Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, crit=no Attached to: #11 (PCI bridge (Normal decode)) Primary display adapter: #24
* David List (david@davidlist.dk) [011101 14:06]:
On Thursday 01 November 2001 22:14, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
The latest I've heard from development is: Framebuffer support for G200/G400/G450/G550 boards is supposed to be automatically disabled as of 7.3 and other Matrox boards are used with 'Option "NoHal'
Is that it? Do you mean that if I put that option in the XF86Config myself, it should work?
X isn't really my bag, but the docs suggest that NoHal disables a library that has known problems with the framebuffer. So if you need the framebuffer for some reason you might want to try it. Otherwise, I'd just avoid using the framebuffer. Thanks for the output, I'll send it along right now. -- -ckm
On Thursday 01 November 2001 23:35, Christopher Mahmood wrote:
* David List (david@davidlist.dk) [011101 14:06]:
Is that it? Do you mean that if I put that option in the XF86Config myself, it should work?
X isn't really my bag, but the docs suggest that NoHal disables a library that has known problems with the framebuffer. So if you need the framebuffer for some reason you might want to try it. Otherwise, I'd just avoid using the framebuffer.
Thanks for the output, I'll send it along right now.
Thank you very much for your help. Best regards, David List
On Thursday 01 November 2001 15:55, David List wrote: | Are the SuSE people listening here? | How about building a kernel that actually works with Matrox G400 | cards. And do not forget to make a 2.4-SMP version also! it's pretty easy to burn one yourself. if you can wait until tomorrow, i'll have the recipes for both fixing the kernel and fixing the anti-aliasing problem put together into a kind of mini-how-to on linuxplanet. still escaping me is getting ext3 to behave if applied to existing partitions -- the recipe is very simple, but in 7.3 it does not want to work. in that the advantage of ext3 is the ability to apply it without a reformat, and the ability to dump out of it painlessly, this is a problem. -- dep There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand; Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.
On Thursday 01 November 2001 22:46, dep wrote:
it's pretty easy to burn one yourself. if you can wait until tomorrow, i'll have the recipes for both fixing the kernel and fixing the anti-aliasing problem put together into a kind of mini-how-to on linuxplanet.
Thank you! Best regards, David List
On Thursday 01 November 2001 22:46, dep wrote:
it's pretty easy to burn one yourself. if you can wait until tomorrow, i'll have the recipes for both fixing the kernel and fixing the anti-aliasing problem put together into a kind of mini-how-to on linuxplanet.
I recieved your link to the article. Thank you very much for that. I have just been booting on a kernel exactly like the 2.4-SMP-64GB included in 7.3, except that framebuffers were disabled. I'm afraid the result was the same: I can switch to tty1-tty6 and then switch between those, but when I try to go back to tty7, the monitor blanks, and all contact with the keyboard is lost. Could you please send your XF86Config file, so that I can compare? Best regards, David List
Well... I have a G450 card (pretty good card) and I ran into exactly the same problem. But I didn't have to rebuild a kernel to solve the problem. What I actually did was to update the Matrox driver that comes with XFree 4.0.3 to the driver provided by Matrox on their website. It's pretty easy to do, but be careful, they have the same name. On the framebuffer problem, I think that might be related to something like mplayer. Mplayer allows you to use the TVout of the G450 card (for exemple to watch DVDs on your TV), this being unsupported in the current Matrox driver (why ? I have no idea). Best regards, David Garnier Quoting David List <david@davidlist.dk>:
On Thursday 01 November 2001 06:42, dep wrote:
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 21:28, Jon Pennington wrote: | The first thing that comes to mind is the kernel configuration, | actually. Had your kernel been built with no frame buffer support | but only the standard 386/VGA console, I don't think this would be | an issue. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the solution is to | disable MGA framebuffer support altogether.
bingo! right answer! they had framebuffer support enabled in the kernel configuration for some insane reason. burning a kernel without it solved the problem. (this is gonna make life *really* interesting for people with g-400 cards who decide 7.3 is the time to give suse a try. what a friggin' disaster.)
Are the SuSE people listening here? How about building a kernel that actually works with Matrox G400 cards. And do not forget to make a 2.4-SMP version also! Best regards, David List
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com
Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq and the archives at http://lists.suse.com
On Thursday 01 November 2001 02:17, dep wrote:
On Wednesday 31 October 2001 11:11, David List wrote: | I have tried with and without the line. It doesn't make any | difference.
exactly the same symptoms here, also with a g-400. same thing happens when dumping out of X. in fact, i cannot switch to virtual console at all. if you turn up the brightness on the monitor, you'll see very narrow horizontal lines, as if a television set.
i spent an hour on the phone with suse this evening trying to resolve this and other fatal installation issues. no joy, but they're going to have someone who has a g-400 try it out. i mentioned that this and other install/update issues had been mentioned on this list. they said they'd take a look.
Great. If you get a solution please post it here. Thank you for your answer. Best regards, David List
participants (7)
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Christopher Mahmood -
David Garnier -
David List -
david.garnier＠etudier-online.com
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dep -
John W Higgins -
Jon Pennington