Thanks,
The reset command seems to leave a lot of garbage on the screen also (however,
that may help when I 'cat' those pesky binary files to my screen :-)
The BIOS allows EGA/VGA or mono selection..I didn't notice any difference when
mono was selected.
However, I did remove the BIOS from another motherboard and inserted into this
motherboard (do not try this at home!) and it came up and worked. This proves
that the chipset is not properly set up by the BIOS.
So, it seems that the linux text console is dependent on the BIOS... maybe
something needs fixing to more completely setup the VGA stuff. At least the
Xwindows setup and ncurses set the VGA mode properly.
Where does the VGA setup for text mode occur ?
Do you think this could be tweaked to remove the BIOS dependency ?
Thanks,
Ralph
Jack Barnett wrote:
>
> try running the command on the console "reset" when the console graphics
> are looking flaky
> Also in you bios is will probably have the option for vga, svga, cga,
> monocrome options, try
> vga or svga and see what happends.
>
> What kenels have your tried it will?
>
> Ralph Stickley wrote:
> >
> > I have installed 3 distributions of linux of various versions on a Media GX
> > computer. Each time, the console window in 80x25 text mode (boot with out
> > X-Windows) acts "flakey". I don't know how to describe it, but it goes
> > something like this:
> >
> > 1. the kernel messages at boot only get displayed properly about every other
> > message - the message on the bottom of the screen may not show up until another
> > message is displayed.
> >
> > 2. "clear" does not - garbage is left all over the screen...if I hit return 25
> > times and then type clear, it sometimes works better.
> >
> > 3. the bottom line of the screen is hardly ever displayed correctly. If I type
> > "ls /etc", then hit return, I can see the last filenames listed.
> >
> > 4. switching virtual consoles (ALT-F2...) shows text and garbage from a
> > previous console.
> >
> > 5. X Windows seems to work OK (up to 800x600 only, but thats another problem) -
> > ncurses programs (make menuconfig) seem to work fine also.
> >
> > I suspect that my BIOS is not setting the video up properly. I'm sure there is
> > some utility to set the video controller / mode somewhere. (I've tried boot
> > VGA=normal in lilo only...)
> >
> > Anyone else solved this ? Any how-to's that may have information about the video
> > modes stuff ? Any help would be appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Ralph Stickley
> > Datalux, Corp.
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
