Hrm, I do have [M] nvram support, but I'm not sure how to do what you suggested. Thanks for the tip, I'll see what I can learn about this so I might try it.
Regards, Arjen On Mon, 7 Jul 2003, Heather Stern wrote: > On Mon, Jul 07, 2003 at 11:20:02PM +0200, Arjen Verweij wrote: > > Welp, I recompiled a kernel without fb enabled, but when push comes to > > shove, I can NOT swap physical displays after choosing an option (i.e. > > one of the kernel image flavors) from the lilo menu. I am at a loss here. > > > > I'm inclined to think that if it is possible in the lilo menu, this should > > be possible without any special software, but then not being able to do if > > while the machine is booting/after it has booted leaves me flabbergasted. > > > > The reason why this functionality seems suddenly lost is completely > > unclear to me. > > > > Does anyone have suggestions on who to bother with this intriguing > > problem? > > > > Thanks. > > Arjen > > Well, perhaps it is controlled by some code in the BIOS? Linux gets > into protected mode ASAP and tries to not look back at the BIOS ever > again - which means ordinary services like certain keys, running the > floopy, etc all have to be dealt with by the kernel. That's the only > theory I have that covers the feature dying during the kernel load. > > For a reasonable analogy, laptop users whose floppy is really a USB > gadget, where the BIOS normally fakes things out so it looks like a > floppy... either need a kernel that really does have USB and USB-storage > built in, or can't use that floppy until the module is loadable. No > TomsRtBt for them unless they customize it. > > Anyways if this is the case you might be able to do it *just as* the > kernel gets started, but not after very far in and all, and not able to > change the state after that. > > You could, however, try compiling the /dev/nvram feature in and see if > you can see a diff in the results of reading it when you did switch it, > or didn't switch it, but did nothing else special to the bott process. > If so, maybe there's hope, since you can tickle /dev/nvram to hit the > signal (CAREFULLY! don't hit any other values - dd bs=1 and skip), and > see if it just... does the right thing. > > * Heather Stern * star@ many places... > * Starshine Technical Services -*- 800 938 4078 >
