M12 11.9.92

[uncle mark]

I've chased my tail the same way more than once.

I've also had several people bring me their computers for repair -- "won't connect to the Internet" -- for the same reason. I hate that. Can't charge 'em for pressing the F6 key while they're standing there watching.

[GregB]

I have the 32-bit M12 on a flash drive made using UNetbootin, and have been trying to get it to run on an older PC. I have been able to get it to load, and the splash screen looks normal. When it gets to the point where the desktop GUI is supposed to appear the monitor displays a blank screen. I've tried a lot of different cheatcodes making different xdrvr and xres selections and the like. The most that will appear on the screen is a blinking underline cursor in the upper left corner of the screen, and a small white block cursor when the mouse is moved. The PC has an NVIDIA 7300GT AGP video card that is feeding an Acer S231 widescreen flat panel monitor via VGA. This same setup runs MEPIS 11 OK. Any advice will be appreciated.

[timkb4cq]

Have you tried the cheatcodes:

Code: Select all

nouveau.modeset=0 nomodeset

?
I need those on some nvidia cards to get M12 to boot to the GUI.

[uncle mark]

I have the 32-bit M12 on a flash drive made using UNetbootin, and have been trying to get it to run on an older PC. I have been able to get it to load, and the splash screen looks normal. When it gets to the point where the desktop GUI is supposed to appear the monitor displays a blank screen. I've tried a lot of different cheatcodes making different xdrvr and xres selections and the like. The most that will appear on the screen is a blinking underline cursor in the upper left corner of the screen, and a small white block cursor when the mouse is moved. The PC has an NVIDIA 7300GT AGP video card that is feeding an Acer S231 widescreen flat panel monitor via VGA. This same setup runs MEPIS 11 OK. Any advice will be appreciated.

You obviously want to follow Tim's instructions first, but afterwards you may want/need to run sgfxi to get the graphics set up fully. Might need to run it twice.

Totally different problem and hardware, but for grins I recently did an install of Mint 13 on my old laptop with ATI graphics and could only get a screen after choosing Recovery Mode from grub. Didn't have to do anything once I got there -- just chose to boot normally -- but that was the only way to get a screen. When booting in normal mode all I got was a command prompt. Ran sgfxi from that prompt, and even though it threw up a lot of errors and said a lot of things couldn't be done or found or whatever, when it was all over and done with I had good graphics. That sgfxi is a really great tool.
.

[GregB]

Thanks for the replies. I tried using the nouveau.modeset=0 nomodeset cheatcodes by selecting the safe mode selection and editing the part after the fromhd to read only the two suggested cheatcodes. The monitor displays a square box saying Input Not Supported. After a little while the blank screen with the blinking cursor and the block mouse cursor is displayed. I can Alt-F1 to a text mode console to do a user login. Will sgfxi permanently alter the Live version on the flash drive? Once the Live version on the flash drive is working OK I can try a test install to the hard drive on the PC.

[uncle mark]

Thanks for the replies. I tried using the nouveau.modeset=0 nomodeset cheatcodes by selecting the safe mode selection and editing the part after the fromhd to read only the two suggested cheatcodes. The monitor displays a square box saying Input Not Supported. After a little while the blank screen with the blinking cursor and the block mouse cursor is displayed. I can Alt-F1 to a text mode console to do a user login. Will sgfxi permanently alter the Live version on the flash drive? Once the Live version on the flash drive is working OK I can try a test install to the hard drive on the PC.

I wasn't thinking clearly that you were talking about running live, not already installed.

If the 'aufs' cheatcode still works in M12beta (???), then it makes sense to me that yes, you could run sgfxi from the live media. But no, it wouldn't permanently alter the ISO. The drivers pulled in by sgfxi would only be retained for that particular live session.

Couldn't hurt to try.
.

[lucky9]

I'd run those cheatcodes from the normal boot choice. I'd also put them at the end. (all you need to do is start typing when the GRUB boot screen shows up)

Unless you do an actual installation to the FlashDrive nothing will be permanent. UNetBooten only makes a Live FlashDrive.

[GregB]

I tried the aufs setting and the live version didn't want to boot. Replacing the widescreen monitor with an old CRT monitor didn't do any good. I'm not sure where I go from here. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[lucky9]

Thinking about it, I'm not too sure that aufs is included with the Beta. Specifying nouveau should not be necessary either. Have you tried a 30 second delay cheatcode?

IE: rootdelay=30

See here: http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Cheatcodes

You might try the above with the modeset cheatcode also.

[GregB]

So far no joy. Is there any combination of cheatcodes that can aid in doing a diagnostic as to why X11 is failing to establish a valid GUI screen? I tried doing startx from a text mode console. It produces a log file in /var/log. If this log file has diagnostic value, is there any way that this log file can be saved to a permanent file so that I can post a copy of it?