Thanks for all your replies - I really didn't try to combine the options...
The results of my tests:
ext. Monitor - booting with no "cheatcodes": black screen after "Ok, booting the kernel"
fb800x600 vga=normal xvrefresh=50: last line on screen then machine freezes: "Ok, booting the kernel"
knoppix vga=normal xserver=XF86_SVGA: same as above
fb800x600 vga=normal xserver=XF86_SVGA: same as above
ext. Monitor - booting with the above codes: same as above
Hm. That's bad news, I thought that maybe one of your ideas would work...
Dave:
o Sadly the external monitor didn't help - but it was a good idea...
o The Toshiba website is of no great help, anyway I found the following link
http://newsletter.toshiba-tro.de/main/index.html. There are quite a number of setup and installation tips (i.e. it's said that framebuffer 1024x768 16bit should work with the nVidia 420 Go). The only problem is that I couldn't find any hint/suggestion that would apply to the knoppix distribution. Maybe some of you gurus :) could have a look? I'd really like to help but there seems to be no logfile/error with the laptop that could give me a direction where to look closer...
[as you might have read I first thought it might be a GraphicsDriver problem - which it shouldn't be now (framebuffer should work). I even read that installing SuSE 8.1 on this laptop works like a charm. Maybe it's ACPI, which is the problem? That was suggested on that Japan Mailinglist...]
http://linux.toshiba-dme.co.jp/linux/index.htm
http://linux.toshiba-dme.co.jp/ML/tl...00/thread.html
It's said here, that there was a RedHat installation problem ("Ok, booting the kernel..." an then freeze) but after installing with custom kernel from fdd (no ACPI, special Graphics driver, no APM, some patches) to hdd and then changing back to the distribution kernel it works now...
o "just-too-new/ bring the laptop back"
Yeah, I thought about that too, seems that I'd have to wait a little more until someone else figures the problem or maybe I should go directly with a debian installation...
rickenbacherus:
Thanks, I really wasn't sure about how to combine the options. Tried that now, didn't work... :(
Dave:
The "|" in "vesa|fbdev" was meant as a logical OR... tried to save me some keyboard presses :)
Right then, waiting for even more suggestions... nothing helped yet...
-Dan.