Garbled, blocky text on new Arch installation

Elthemor · 2013-11-17 02:00:20

I would like to first note that this is my second Arch install on anything other than a VM. The first time I used Syslinux and didn't have this problem, whereas now I'm using GRUB. Not sure how that affects the problem.

Anyway, as the title states, I've just created a fresh Arch Linux installation, but when I boot up and am prompted to log in (or something?; hard to tell but logically it would be at the login prompt), the text is garbled, blocky, and unintelligible.

Is this a known problem that has a fix? I haven't really been able to find anything on it.

Trilby · 2013-11-17 02:06:12

Does this look like another language, or symbols and line drawing characters, or is it just poorly rendered text?

EDIT: also, can you (perhaps blindly) log in? If so, do you get anything resembling a shell prompt and/or can you enter further (still perhaps blind) commands like `ls` or `reboot`?

Last edited by Trilby (2013-11-17 02:08:20)

Elthemor · 2013-11-17 02:20:46

It looks more just like poorly rendered text.

Yes, I can log in just fine. It's hard to tell with 'ls', but it looks like I can 'reboot' just fine.

Last edited by Elthemor (2013-11-17 02:21:16)

Elthemor · 2013-11-17 02:42:53

I have found someone with a similar problem (apparently I was searching the wrong keywords): https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=158286

The only problem is that I don't exactly have another graphics card to plug in.

EDIT: Ack, sorry for the double post. I wasn't thinking.

Last edited by Elthemor (2013-11-17 02:44:03)

Stunts · 2013-11-19 23:42:22

I had the same problem also an a PIII like the one in the referenced post.
I was able to solve it by remotely logging into the machine and adding the following to /etc/vconsole.conf:

KEYMAP=pt_PT
FONT=lat9w-16
FONT_MAP=8859-1_to_uni

You can, of course, ignore the keymap line if yours is different from mine (judging from your reported location, it's likely to be.)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-11-17 02:00:20

Garbled, blocky text on new Arch installation

#2 2013-11-17 02:06:12

Re: Garbled, blocky text on new Arch installation

#3 2013-11-17 02:20:46

Re: Garbled, blocky text on new Arch installation

#4 2013-11-17 02:42:53

Re: Garbled, blocky text on new Arch installation

#5 2013-11-19 23:42:22

Re: Garbled, blocky text on new Arch installation

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