Arch Linux

TheGipp

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 14

kernel boot video mode

Just did pacman -Syu for the first time in a long time.
Using lilo.

Lilo boots fine and starts unpacking the kernel in the "normal" video mode.
However, as soon as the kernel takes over, the video mode switches to a large mode (don't know which one) where most of the text is actually off the bottom of the screen.  Almost like the kernel thinks it's in the "normal" mode, but the video card jumped into a different mode.  I'm not sure about that theory, though.

I'm still able to login and startx.  But the console mode is nearly useless.

I tried adding vga=ask to my lilo.conf
It asks and I reply but the kernel (or hardware) still jumps into a useless mode.

I tried typing vga=normal at the lilo command line... same deal.

Any thoughts? theories?

Just for reference is there a way to revert back to my old kernel or did pacman -Syu change too much to bother with that?

thanks for helping an old newbie

TheGipp

TheGipp

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 14

Re: kernel boot video mode

ack!  another clue

/sbin/lilo reports this:
/proc/misc: No entry for device-mapper found
Is device-mapper driver missing from kernel?
Failure to communicate with kernel device-mapper driver.

I hadn't noticed that before.
That's probably another problem that I need to work.

any help?