Cannot Access Display Settings after hdd install

[A. Jorge Garcia]

I tried copying XF86Config-4, but that only worked on my knoppix-installer 20031119 as knoppix box. If I try to do this with my knoppix-installer 20031119 as debian box, X crashes on boot-up!

BTW, you can mount a partition from the desktop as read/write. Click on the partition's icon to mount it. Then right-click it to "change read/write mode."

Thanx,

[Coolnat2004]

Hmm, well I'm using like 10-23-2003 Knoppix for this (Took 4 hours to download that, dont feel like getting another one till theres some major improvement)

[knoppixman]

Colors 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
------------------------------------------------------
256 | 769 771 773 775 796
32,768 | 784 787 790 793 797
65,536 | 785 788 791 794 798
16.8M | 786 789 792 795 799

OK, I changed vga=791 to vga=normal in lilo on my knoppix-installed as debian box. This got rid of the boot errors. My Dell Optiplex GX270 has the onboard intel video chip (i810). When in WIMxP, I can get 16bit (65536 colors) and 24bit (16.8 million colors) color depth at 800x600 and 1024x768 resolution. These are the only video modes available on this chip.

So, in lilo:
I tried vga=788 for 800x600x16, no joy;
I tried vga=791 for 1024x768x16, no joy;
I tried vga=789 for 800x600x24, no joy;
I tried vga=792 for 1024x768x24, no joy.

In every case I get the video boot errors back and kcontrol reports only 640x480x8. The res is low, but it looks better than 640x480 (maybe 800x600). How do I get 1024x768??

BTW, I got my res to work off the liveCD with the following cheat: vga=normal screen=1024x768 xvrefresh=60

TIA,

It is a BIOS setting issue. Go into your BIOS and into the "Integrated Peripherals" section and change the silly "1 MB" shared video memory to "8 MB" and you won't need any fancy kernel command line options to get any resolution working on a Dell Optiplex GX's onboard video chip.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, good! However, why would I need 8MB VRAM? The highest res and color combo i810 has is 1024x768x24 which is less than 3MB.

TIA,

[knoppixman]

OK, good! However, why would I need 8MB VRAM? The highest res and color combo i810 has is 1024x768x24 which is less than 3MB.

TIA,

Well, the last time I was near a Dell Optiplex GX270, it didn't have any choices other than "1 MB" and "8 MB" in the BIOS for the ram it uses for onboard video and choosing "1 MB" meant I couldn't get more than 640x480 at 16 bit in ANY distro of linux (yet somehow Windows got 1024x768 @ 24bit just fine without needing the change, probably something the included driver pulled off without telling the Linux developers how to do it) on the machine while choosing "8 MB" let me go as high as 1024x768 @ 24 bit without problems. So, even if it is 3 MB or less of usage for that resolution, you would have to choose the only choice higher than "1 MB" in the BIOS to use it in linux.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Got it, however, I notice now for the first time since I switched to a hdinsatll in my lab at school that I no longer get the "BIOS login screen" that used to say "hit F12 for BIOS and F11 for something else?" Even if I hit F12 during boot-up, nothing happens. I get the lilo screen choices and thats it! How do I get into the BIOS again to change to 8MB VRAM?

TIA,

[knoppixman]

Got it, however, I notice now for the first time since I switched to a hdinsatll in my lab at school that I no longer get the "BIOS login screen" that used to say "hit F12 for BIOS and F11 for something else?" Even if I hit F12 during boot-up, nothing happens. I get the lilo screen choices and thats it! How do I get into the BIOS again to change to 8MB VRAM?

TIA,

Try holding the key to get into the bios (I forgot which it was, either F2 or something) while pressing the power button or press and hold it immediately after you hit the power button. You have to be fast or it boots the hard drive.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, the F2/F12 screen goes by too fast if the monitor is not already awake. Anyway, I reset the 8MB VRAM on all my stations. All the clients now do 800x600x16 and the server does 1024x768x24.

One problem, one of the client's monitors just flashes all the lights on the front panel right after switching to runlevel 5 when set to 8MB and it gets stuck. At the 1MB setting I get the kdm login screen at 640x480x16 as before. Anyone experience this problem?

TIA,
AJG

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, first I thought it was a RAM problem due to the BIOS setting, but when I switched back to 1MB, 640x480x16 works ok.

Then I thought it was a defective Monitor as the whole lab has the exact same hardware and the exact same install (knoppix-installer as debian 20031119). So I swaped monitors with a working station and got the same blinking lights and no video again.

Then in kxconfig I changed from a generic/i810 card to an intel/i810 card and changed the Xres to 1024x768. After rebooting I get the same problem, but the output worked fine on my LCD projector! the generic seting does too.

So, I find that the problem is the wrong monitor default in kcontrol (ie: kxconfig). On all the other PCs it defaults to dell/della000. On this PC, the dell monitors listed are all different so it defaulted to monitor0/monitor0???

BTW, its really a Dell E551 monitor. I'm reinstalling the whole knoppix partition right now in hopes of correcting the incorrect monitor data....

Any other suggestions are welcome!

TIA,
AJG

[Stephen]

OK, first I thought it was a RAM problem due to the BIOS setting, but when I switched back to 1MB, 640x480x16 works ok.

Then I thought it was a defective Monitor as the whole lab has the exact same hardware and the exact same install (knoppix-installer as debian 20031119). So I swaped monitors with a working station and got the same blinking lights and no video again.

Then in kxconfig I changed from a generic/i810 card to an intel/i810 card and changed the Xres to 1024x768. After rebooting I get the same problem, but the output worked fine on my LCD projector! the generic seting does too.

So, I find that the problem is the wrong monitor default in kcontrol (ie: kxconfig). On all the other PCs it defaults to dell/della000. On this PC, the dell monitors listed are all different so it defaulted to monitor0/monitor0???

BTW, its really a Dell E551 monitor. I'm reinstalling the whole knoppix partition right now in hopes of correcting the incorrect monitor data....

Any other suggestions are welcome!

TIA,
AJG

If you have the proper horizontal and vertical settings for the monitor then you do not the Load "ddc" that is most likely in the file and may be causing problems by detecting the monitor wrong so comment that line out in your XF86Config-4 and make sure of the setings and restart the xserver and see if that helps.