From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andrew Langdon-Davies Subject: Re: olivetti p100 with onboard ATI Mach64 Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 11:21:50 +0200 Sender: linux-newbie-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <3EB238AE.4020506@arrakis.es> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20030430114653.01f79408@celine> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20030430114653.01f79408@celine> List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: linux-newbie > > >> >> I have two machines as described above and both give me exactly the >> same problem. Soon after booting from a Linux floppy the screen goes >> blank. > > > You mention testing with tomsrtbt. As I recall, it uses a framebuffer > device to let it set the video mode. > Offhand, I don't know whether any of the full-strength distros do not > use the framebuffer by default, particularly in their installers > (since you talk about testing with floppies). Offhand, I know that the > router-oriented LEAF distros (leaf.sourceforge.net) do not use it, and > probably other floppy-based distros (trinux? maybe) also omit this. So > you might try one of them to see if this is your problem. If it is, > you can easily compile a custom kernel that leaves out framebuffer > support, assuming you are working toward a hard-disk install. Looks like you were right. Bering boots to a console prompt with no trouble. (It must be great to know so much). Next step is indeed to go for a hard-disk install, which means I can't put off learning to compile a kernel any longer. Presumably I can do this on another machine and then transfer it (?). I was thinking of installing something like Peanut. What do you reckon? I can probably rustle up about 800 megas of disk space on two disks. The machine will not be used for anything more ambitious than text-processing, Internet, etc. Andrew - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs