Re: Installer does not detect video card (not an X issue)

From: Phony Account (phaccount_at_nycap.rr.com)
Date: 02/03/05 

Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:17:11 GMT

E. Charters wrote:
> What I would do is use a rescue disk to reconfigure X with the command
> xf86config instead of using RH's Xconfigurator. Now I don't know if
> RH even has that tool, or the handy-dandy XF86Setup anymore --
> a TCl/TK program available from http://www.slackware.com which will do
> it graphically using the always usable VGA-16 driver.
>
> RH is supposed to have both XF86Setup and xf86config. Try the latter
> first and answer the questions. It is a command line tool. Late tune
> the card with XF86Steup, which is graphical but will run from the
> command line, setting up its own display. Really Xconfigurator should
> work from the command line too, so go ahead and try that.
>
> You could use a rescue disk with at least a text editor on it. But even
> without you can still run xf86config. You have to get root status and be
> in a read write mode to run it, which is sometimes tricky. You might
> want to try booting from a floppy made for that system with the boot
> option -ro. There finding the video modes that are appropriate and the
> drivers can be done "by hand". It is not that hard.
>
> The diamond fire GL 2 is not listed in the card database. Its driver is
> unkown. IT could be the same as other diamond fire models, or you may
> have to try the generic SVGA driver and possibly generic VGA.
>
> This is the great weakness of the RH system which presumes that it can
> auto install everything and detect everything. It cannot, and there are
> not always solutions if it fails.
>
> There are other lilo boot options. "rescue" allows you to fix things in
> RH usually. "single" might work too. You could play with the "vga=80x25
> " option as well after entering "linux" at boot time, to change video
> modes.
>
> EC<:-}
>
> Phony Account wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am installing Fedora Core 3 on a Dell Precision 330.
>> Video card is a Diamond Fire GL2 with a rather old BIOS.
>>
>> (The PC was rebooted with the distribution CD, and I was prompted for
>> the type of installation. However, no partitioning yet, language
>> selection, ...)
>>
>> So, just before the actual installation, I see a message that the
>> video card was not detected (the monitor, kbd and mouse are) and that
>> the installation is going ``headless''. It then proceeds without
>> incident to partition, install packages.
>>
>> When the system reboots for the first time (this is when I'll set up
>> the users, etc), I briefly see a Fedora splash screen, then the usual
>> kernel boot messages, and _then_ the screen goes wild: on a blue
>> background reddish diagonal stripes march across the screen.
>>
>> I am not in X at that point. X has not been configured yet. I can
>> ctrl-alt-del to reboot. But ctrl-alt-backspace, ctrl-alt-F2 don't work.
>>
>> I tried booting to run-level three to go to a text mode only by
>> specifying init 3 at the end of the boot kernel command. The os
>> loader is GRUB. But the same thing happened again.
>>
>> Not knowing a thing about hardware, (and just slightly more about
>> Linux) I am wondering if the video card bios is too old and cannot
>> respond to the probing by the installer.
>>
>> Also, according to the same conspiracy theory, during the boot
>> process, the video card gets wierd signals because its bios is out of
>> date and throws garbage to the monitor.
>>
>> And it is not a monitor issue. I have tried two.
>>
>> But I seriously hope that it will not come to installing a new bios,
>> because I currently don't have a usable system, and using the rescue
>> mode from the install media to reach across the network to grab the
>> drivers which I downloaded to a windows machine seems like a great
>> project for my retirement. Right now, I need a working machine.
>>
>> Thanks for any suggestion,
>>
>> Mirko
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Subject:
>> Installer does not detect video card (not an X issue)
>> From:
>> Phony Account <phaccount@nycap.rr.com>
>> Date:
>> Thu, 03 Feb 2005 00:52:39 GMT
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am installing Fedora Core 3 on a Dell Precision 330.
>> Video card is a Diamond Fire GL2 with a rather old BIOS.
>>
>> (The PC was rebooted with the distribution CD, and I was prompted for
>> the type of installation. However, no partitioning yet, language
>> selection, ...)
>>
>> So, just before the actual installation, I see a message that the
>> video card was not detected (the monitor, kbd and mouse are) and that
>> the installation is going ``headless''. It then proceeds without
>> incident to partition, install packages.
>>
>> When the system reboots for the first time (this is when I'll set up
>> the users, etc), I briefly see a Fedora splash screen, then the usual
>> kernel boot messages, and _then_ the screen goes wild: on a blue
>> background reddish diagonal stripes march across the screen.
>>
>> I am not in X at that point. X has not been configured yet. I can
>> ctrl-alt-del to reboot. But ctrl-alt-backspace, ctrl-alt-F2 don't work.
>>
>> I tried booting to run-level three to go to a text mode only by
>> specifying init 3 at the end of the boot kernel command. The os
>> loader is GRUB. But the same thing happened again.
>>
>> Not knowing a thing about hardware, (and just slightly more about
>> Linux) I am wondering if the video card bios is too old and cannot
>> respond to the probing by the installer.
>>
>> Also, according to the same conspiracy theory, during the boot
>> process, the video card gets wierd signals because its bios is out of
>> date and throws garbage to the monitor.
>>
>> And it is not a monitor issue. I have tried two.
>>
>> But I seriously hope that it will not come to installing a new bios,
>> because I currently don't have a usable system, and using the rescue
>> mode from the install media to reach across the network to grab the
>> drivers which I downloaded to a windows machine seems like a great
>> project for my retirement. Right now, I need a working machine.
>>
>> Thanks for any suggestion,
>>
>> Mirko
>
>
EC,

As I said, I am not in X at that point yet. X has not been configured.
  (I could be missing sommething).

But you are right about the card not being in the (at least red-hats)
database. However, I did download a linux driver from the
manufacturer's web site and was hoping to install it once the machine boots.

I was looking yesterday for a database of graphics cards for linux.
Where could I find it?

Someone else (I cross-posted to comp.os.linux) suggested kernel ...
vga=normal. I will try your and his suggestions.

Thanks for the reply,

Mirko

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