[SOLVED]Video problems and more

Ron74 · 2011-03-18 00:53:40

Some months ago, I posted about my video problems in trying to install Arch on several different computers. Getting no good results I gave up, but recently made another attempt. Right now, I have Arch installed on my test computer which is a MSI Celeron, with onboard S3 ProSavage video, one monitor. I do not use a desktop, only the JWM window manager, no icons, wallpaper or any other crap. Here, Arch is great. Ultimately, I want to get Arch set up on my workhorse which is an Asus P4, with no onboard video using dual monitors. I might add that this ASUS board, with two old nVidia cards, AGP and PCI ran dual monitors with FreeBsd and Debian.

Herein lies the problem:

I want Arch NOT to mess with the video until I start xorg regardless of whatever AGP and PSI card I might be using. Please stick with the BIOS resolution. This is how it was with every other linux I have installed. I have tried several video cards, AGP nVidia, ATI, and Matrox, as well as PCI nVidia and ATI, all with different results. Using most of the cards, I get a console (no, haven't messed with xorg yet) that appears in the upper left corner so small I can't read it. Or else, there's a white square that obliterates the upper left of the console, The only time this doesn't happen is if i use the matrox AGP card or an ATI PCI card not in conjunction with another card.

I read to use the vga=xxx in the grub menu list as well as kernel boot option set to nomodset, but either I don't know how to do this, or else it doesn't work for me. What is KMS, and how to use it?

I want to resolve this issue before attempting to get dual monitors set up on the Asus board. Any help is appreciated

Last edited by Ron74 (2011-03-18 16:17:45)

bohoomil · 2011-03-18 01:07:58

Ron74 wrote:

What is KMS, and how to use it?

KMS

I don't quite get it: does the picture get messed up as you described after the kernel loads? Do you have normal BIOS logo / text before the bootloader starts?

Ron74 · 2011-03-18 01:22:12

bohoomil wrote:

Ron74 wrote:
What is KMS, and how to use it?
KMS
I don't quite get it: does the picture get messed up as you described after the kernel loads? Do you have normal BIOS logo / text before the bootloader starts?

As Arch takes over the boot process, the resolution becomes somewhat higher, and then when comes the logon screen it's so small, in the upper left, that I can hardly read it. This problem is well documented on the search engines. I have read where some users want a higher console resolution, and others want a lower resolution. I have installed Slack, FreeBSD, Debian, TinyCore and others, without this problem. Apparently, Arch is deciding what screen resolution a user should have in the console. This would be more understandable were it not that there is no consistancy between various video cards. Yes, I'm guessing that this happens after the kernel loads. But how come the discrepancy between different video cards?

bohoomil · 2011-03-18 01:32:53

OK, if so let's presume you add the VGA=773 parameter to you kernel in menu.lst, so it looks like this:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdax VGA=773 ro quiet

This should bring up fb resolution of 1024x768 in 256 colours. Try it and see if it works.

Last edited by bohoomil (2011-03-18 01:33:21)

Ron74 · 2011-03-18 01:50:28

bohoomil wrote:

OK, if so let's presume you add the VGA=773 parameter to you kernel in menu.lst, so it looks like this:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdax VGA=773 ro quiet
This should bring up fb resolution of 1024x768 in 256 colours. Try it and see if it works.

I did this, as I have several times before, but i used vga=771 for 800x600. I haven't seen to use quiet after ro, but in either event it doesn't work. Somewhere in my searching, someone wrote to either enable or disable kms or nomodset in kernel, but I don't understand it.

lives2evil · 2011-03-18 02:07:26

How about try

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdax nomodeset ro quiet

for intel graphics use

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdax i915.modeset=0 ro quiet

Ron74 · 2011-03-18 03:55:08

lives2evil wrote:

How about try

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdax nomodeset ro quiet

for intel graphics use

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdax i915.modeset=0 ro quiet

Using the ATI radion AGP board:

I commented out the original kernal line in /boot/grub/menu.lst, inserted your instructions and rebooted. Now I cannot boot at all. In the Grub "ARCH LINUX" selection I get "Error 15: File not found" - In "ARCH Linux Fallback" I get "Error 19: Linux kernel must be loaded before initrd". Looks like I'll need to do a reinstall.

skottish · 2011-03-18 03:55:38

Ron74 wrote:

bohoomil wrote:
OK, if so let's presume you add the VGA=773 parameter to you kernel in menu.lst, so it looks like this:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdax VGA=773 ro quiet
This should bring up fb resolution of 1024x768 in 256 colours. Try it and see if it works.
I did this, as I have several times before, but i used vga=771 for 800x600. I haven't seen to use quiet after ro, but in either event it doesn't work. Somewhere in my searching, someone wrote to either enable or disable kms or nomodset in kernel, but I don't understand it.

You can't disable KMS anymore for any video driver that's built into the Linux kernel. Arch didn't do this; the kernel devs did it quite a while back. You're not seeing this with other distros because either the kernel is a bit old or they explicitly defined the console font. You can find information about setting the console font in the wiki.

lives2evil · 2011-03-18 04:20:17

Ron74 wrote:

Using the ATI radion AGP board:
I commented out the original kernal line in /boot/grub/menu.lst, inserted your instructions and rebooted. Now I cannot boot at all. In the Grub "ARCH LINUX" selection I get "Error 15: File not found" - In "ARCH Linux Fallback" I get "Error 19: Linux kernel must be loaded before initrd". Looks like I'll need to do a reinstall.

Did you change "/dev/sdax" to your root partition? I don't think it's necessary to reinstall your whole system.
Just press E to edit your boot options (at grub menu). There should be instruction at the bottom.
You can also try booting from live cd, mount boot partion and edit the menu.lst file.
And sorry if I mess up your configuration .

Also see this if it's what you want:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KM … e_too_tiny

Last edited by lives2evil (2011-03-18 04:28:50)

Ron74 · 2011-03-18 13:54:03

lives2evil - no need to appologize about my need to reinstall. I've done it so many rimes I could do it in my sleep.

skottish - thanks for your response. I read about KMS on search engine, but much of what you find there is outdated and won't work as you point out. I have read the wiki and tried some of the fonts available which did help somewhat. I could live with the smaller console fonts, but the major problem will be installing dual monitors with two video cards. I have had some strange results there. Craziest was when the boot process was happening on monitor0, then it went blank and the logon screen appeared on monitor1. In one instance, when two cards were installed, neither monitor would work.

Please consider the matter closed, and thank you to all who tried to help.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-03-18 00:53:40

[SOLVED]Video problems and more

#2 2011-03-18 01:07:58

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#3 2011-03-18 01:22:12

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#4 2011-03-18 01:32:53

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#5 2011-03-18 01:50:28

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#6 2011-03-18 02:07:26

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#7 2011-03-18 03:55:08

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#8 2011-03-18 03:55:38

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#9 2011-03-18 04:20:17

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

#10 2011-03-18 13:54:03

Re: [SOLVED]Video problems and more

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