On Wed, 16 Jul 2003, Christian Convey wrote:
> Mark Vojkovich wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 16 Jul 2003, Christian Convey wrote:
> >
> >
> >>IIRC, however, the main reason you had me pull a new version of XF86 from CVS was
> >>to see if it fixed the problem where on my virtual consoles, the last half of the
> >>last line is below the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately, I do still have that
> >>problem.
> >>
> >>One detail I forgot to mention: Always (regardless of any playing around I've
> >>done), I have another problem: Mandrake 9.1 gives me what I think is a boot-loader
> >>menu during startup. The text inside that menu is absolutely garbled, but the
> >>rest of the graphics on that screen look normal. \
> >>
> >>When I hit Enter and go to the screen that shows the startup log messages
> >>scrolling by, the text there, and from then on, looks perfectly normal. Could
> >>this be related to my virtual console problem?
> >>
> >
> >
> > It could be. I noticed that there didn't appear to be a 1440x900
> > mode supported by the bios. It's possible that the kernel framebuffer
> > stuff relies on that. I assume you are using a kernel framebuffer?
> > That would be rivafb either built as a kernel module or staticly
> > compiled into the kernel. If you wanted to you could try building
> > a kernel without kernel framebuffer support. That might help.
> > If you get the penguin image while the kernel boot messages are flowing
> > by, that means you've definitely got kernel framebuffer support.
>
> Thanks. So does it work like the following?
>
> During early boot up, the boot-loader software is responsible for
> rendering text, such as in my boot-loader menu. It requires bios
> support for those fonts, and I apparently don't have it.
>
> Then, the kernel is responsible for rendering text. That controls the
> rendering of the messages that flow by as the initiation scripts run.
> This also relies on the BIOS support for rendering that text.
>
> Finally, xf86 is responsible for rendering text, even on the virtual
> consoles. At this point a deficiency in the BIOS won't necessary
> matter, because xf86 can use font / resolution definitions from sources
> other than the BIOS to handle virtual console text rendering.
I don't know the details of how the OS deals with graphics
during bootup. I assume it uses the BIOS.
XFree86 isn't responsible for doing anything more than
restoring the hardware to the state it found it in. To my
knowledge, there aren't any problems in the "nv" driver related
to that, but there have been in the past, and it's reasonable
that there could be a problem there that I don't know about
yet. I asked about a framebuffer device because I think
it may be involved in the text mode setup. With my limited
knowledge of how the framebuffer devices work, it occurs to
me that the misrestoration of the text mode may be due to
the framebuffer device, which might possibly rely on the
BIOS.
>
> >
> > I would normally suggest trying NVIDIA's binary Linux drivers, but
> > it is my understanding that the last NVIDIA binary Linux driver release
> > (4363) didn't support GeForceFX laptops but the next release will,
> > though it has not yet been released.
>
> Thanks. Is there any way of knowing getting word when they're expected
> to be released?
I suppose they'll be released when they're ready, not that it
will specifically address this problem. If there's a mode missing
in the BIOS and the framebuffer device is relying on that, it would
probably occur with the NVIDIA binary drivers as well.
>
> Also, is there any remedy whatsoever for the bad text rendition shown
> during the boot loader? For instance, a BIOS update?
A BIOS update would probably fix that. It might fix everything,
actually. BIOSes on these systems are usually combination
System/Video BIOSes and are the responsibility of the vendor
(Toshiba in this case).
I don't suppose you know your bios version do you? I'm not
sure how to find it out on laptops these days.
Mark.
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