How do I boot commands?

[ICPUG]

OK Krishna - I haven't actually tried video=640x480 myself yet but I have been told it works (with Puppy Linux) by reliable sources - the Developer! I will obviously try it now to see precisely what happens. Maybe it's a 640x480 viewport like you suggest. The problem we had in the Puppy world was without the video boot code we would get a really small font with lots of characters at the terminal. The boot code should solve it.

I would have told you earlier mecho but I have only known myself for about a month! I skipped Knoppix 6.2.1 so I didn't get the problem until I got 6.3 and ... then with the latest Puppy Linux and ... then with the latest Ubuntu. It was at this point I had to really find a solution. Pressing the right buttons in the Puppy community eventually created some investigative action and we eventually got to the right answer! The Ubuntu forums helped as well. I am surprised there has not been an outcry about this because it must affect a lot of people. The Intel chipset was used in a lot of notepads a few years back.

I think the problem started with the 2.6.33 kernel - Before that, no problem - but whether it is the kernel or the change in intel driver at that time I don't know. It's all tied up with Kernel Mode Setting.

[kl522]

I think the problem started with the 2.6.33 kernel - Before that, no problem - but whether it is the kernel or the change in intel driver at that time I don't know. It's all tied up with Kernel Mode Setting.

My xserver-xorg-video-intel is 2.11.0-1, which I remember correctly is said to be KMS-only ( or the second release ? ) I used to get a black screen before the X is fully started. But now everything works normally, I could see all the standard boot messages as though there is no KMS. To do that, one must recompile the kernel to turn off all the frame buffer hardware drivers. Below is an example of such discussion.

http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-amd64&m=126694476009383

There are many such discusions in the net. I don't know what's the implication of turning off frame buffer hardware drivers to non-intel video hardware though.

[KinVA]

mecho

There is another way to avoid the black screen of death with the latest intel driver. Use of the following bootcode make the driver work without the need for vesa or fbdev.

i915.modeset=1

This alters the size of the framebuffer used when in terminal mode. If you prefer the old VGA like display then use the following bootcode as well:

video=640x480

I have the same issue where I get past run level 5, a half screen of something flashes on the screen twice & then the screen goes black. For about 10-15 more seconds you can hear the hard drive doing something & then silence. I have a Gateway NV79 laptop, according to the documentation the chipset would be: Mobile Intel® HM55 Express Chipset.

Do you think the i915.modeset=1 setting would work?

[ICPUG]

I have the same issue where I get past run level 5, a half screen of something flashes on the screen twice & then the screen goes black. For about 10-15 more seconds you can hear the hard drive doing something & then silence. I have a Gateway NV79 laptop, according to the documentation the chipset would be: Mobile Intel® HM55 Express Chipset.

Do you think the i915.modeset=1 setting would work?

Having had a quick look at the Intel website I note the Mobile Series 5 chipset is NOT covered by the intel driver. It lists Mobile series 4 so maybe it is just a forgotten update.

I would certainly try i915.modeset=1 if it was me. If it doesn't work then try a fall back to Mecho's original suggestion.

Please let us know whether it works or not.

[krishna.murphy]

It's certainly worth trying! The beauty of the LiveCD approach is that you can't really "mess up" your operating system - it's a CD! So, press on, let us know how it goes, and have fun!

Cheers!
Krishna

[utu]

@ICPUG post #8 and
@mecho post #9

My laptop has Intel GM45 video.
I've never noticed any video problems with Knoppix 6.2.1,
either at boot-up or otherwise.

However, recently I've been trying out a 2Gb SD Card version of Ubuntu.
Using the 64-bit Ubuntu version, the video was noticeably flickery.
The 32-bit version was less flickery, but still a little unsettling.

Adding the i915-kms.conf file to /etc/modprobe.d seems to have quieted down
the 32-bit version completely.

My thanks to you both for solving a problem I had no idea where to start going after.

[KinVA]

ICPUG and Krishna - thanks for the support. The i915 command did not work, but the xmodule=vesa did. I was able to get to my folders. Everything seemed to freeze when I tried to copy more than one file at a time, but I assume this is a completely separate issue.

[krishna.murphy]

ICPUG and Krishna - thanks for the support. The i915 command did not work, but the xmodule=vesa did. I was able to get to my folders. Everything seemed to freeze when I tried to copy more than one file at a time, but I assume this is a completely separate issue.

You might want to use the command line and wildcards for this one, if it's still incomplete. There are a lot ways to do it, but if you want more info on the topic, try going to LXTerminal (black screen on monitor icon) and type in

man cp
or
info cp

Cheers!
Krishna