My screen display is ghosted !

[Alex1]

I’ve recently installed Knoppix 3.1 from CD to HD with knx-hdinstall.
When I boot from the floppy it displays the $prompt, then loads devices and after a short while presents a Linux/Debian login box.
I login either to Root or Knoppix and when the screen appears it is split into 2-3 ghosted desktops. I’ve tried using the various cheatcodes at the boot prompt but no joy.
Also I cannot access ‘Display’ at the prompt, I get Error: Kunique Application: can’t determine display, aborting.
My card is an ATI Rage 128 Pro.
I’m a relative newbie to Linux so could someone please give me couple of pointers.
I’m confused about LILO, how can I get it to boot Knoppix/Debian from HD without the need for the floppy at startup ?
I’ve spent nearly 5 days on this and feel that I am so near to getting it up and running but have maybe overlooked some crucial step, can anyone spot it ?
My system is AMD Duron 1300, Via 266B mb, 256ram, 2 HD’s, 1 is XP Pro, the other Linux ext2 + swap file partitions.
Any help greatly appreciated, I can’t wait to chuck XP in the bin and use Linux 100%.
I’ve also tried editing xf86config but as screen is so badly ghosted it is near on impossible to interact with this utility !!

[RockMumbles]

I'm going from memory but I think this is correct...
Use a console, press <CTRL><ALT><F2> and login as root, then use a text editor, nano is pretty easy to use, and edit your XF86Config-4 file. Use the following command from a prompt:

nano -w /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

scroll down and look for the following line:
...
#Option "sw_cursor"
...

remove the hash (#) from before the word option, so it looks like this:
...
Option "sw_cursor"
...
then save the file, by pressing " <CTRL>x " then " y " (leave the quotes out) then probably the easiest thing to do, restart your computer.

HTH

rock

[Alex1]

Rock

Thanks for info.
I'll give it a try.

Alex1

[mattsbr]

I also have an ATI Rage 128 pro and Knoppix works fine for me. Something like this happened when I first tried to run it but the at the boot prompt I tried typing in "Knoppix screen=1024x768" and then it recognized my card at booted properly.

[Alex1]

Rock

Just to mention progress so far, I have managed to get my system to boot my Knoppix 3.1 cd/HD installation directly from the HD now bypassing the need to boot from floppy.
I used MC in a shell console to edit Lilo.conf to look for /dev/hda1 by booting from the knoppix cd, then rebooting and it loaded Lilo.
Only downside is screen display still in a ghosted state, but I can now see the penguin which although ghosted I wasn't seeing before.
I'm still trying with different screen settings.
If you have any more tips I would be grateful.

TIA
Alex1