Weird cursor on Sony Vaio XG18

[KlausRSchambeck]

Hi There !!!

I'm a bit new to unix. I propgrammed a CD with V3.1-2003-01-01-EN.

It seems to work fine on my desktop (pentium III on generic motherboard)

However, when I try to boot on my laptop, a Sony Vaio XG18 (pentium III and 256Mb) I get a weird cursor (square and looks like a picket fence)

I have tried the knoppix pci=irqmask=0x0e98, with the result of having no mouse and cursor.

Please is anyone out there with a similar notebook who solved this problem or any other ideas ???

Very much appreciated, KLAUS

I'm taking a LINUX admin class at the time and hopefully I will be able to understand a bit more in a few weeks.

[RockMumbles]

What video chipset does your laptop have?

Some video cards need to have an option set for the cursor. Look at your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file and look for this section:
...
Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
# sw_cursor is needed for some ati and radeon cards
#Option "sw_cursor"
#Option "hw_cursor"
#Option "NoAccel"
#Option "ShowCache"
#Option "ShadowFB"
#Option "UseFBDev"
#Option "Rotate"
Identifier "Card0"
...
you might want to edit the file to allow: " Option "sw_cursor" " by removing the # in the front of that line.

What you'll need to do is start up in console mode ' knoppix 2 ' make the changes to the file (nano is pretty easy to use) and then change to user knoppix, by : " su knoppix " and then start X with: " startx "

HTH

rock

[KlausRSchambeck]

Hi There !!!

Yes, it seems the "sw_cursor" has worked, I have not done extensive testing yet.

The graphics chipset is a NeoMagic MagicMedia 256XL+

I was wondering if there is a command line switch, which can be used at boot prompt, which does the same thing without the editing of the file.

Also, if I want to switch back to root as of "su root" I dont know the password, a <cr> alone doesn't seem to work ???

Sorry for these simple Qs, I still have a long way to go.

Are there any book or manuals to download or buy. "Deutsch oder Englisch, ist fuer mich kein Problem.

Thanks, und Vielen Dank , KlausRSchambeck

[cascadefx]

Also, if I want to switch back to root as of "su root" I dont know the password, a <cr> alone doesn't seem to work ???

The passwords are locked in Knoppix so you can switch to the root account using su. However, The root account launches the graphical environment, so you can switch to a virtual terminal ( CTRL+ALT+[F2|F3|F4]) and have root access (CTRL+ALT+F5 to get back to the graphical shell). Or you can launch a root Xterm from the KNOPPIX submenu off of the K menu.


-hth