[TriLUG] Knoppix help? possible video problem

[Aaron S. Joyner]

It sounds like the root of the problem is that Knoppix is setting the X 
refresh rate a tad higher than his monitor can handle.  Once he gets to 
the "5 ghosted desktops", have him try Cntrl-Alt-+ (that's + on the 
number pad).  That will cycle through the available resolutions, and 
with Knoppix, that's virtually every possible combination from 640x480 
up to what it thinks is best.  Jason's suggestion is equally likely to 
solve the problem, but perhaps at a sacrifice of resolution, when 
1024x768 or 800x600 is possible, just with a lower refresh rate.  There 
may be a "cheat code" for specifying the refresh rate as well, but I 
don't know what it would be off-hand.  He can also pop up a shell prompt 
and run 'xconfigurator' and see which settings work, once he finally 
cycles down to one that works w/ Cntrl-Alt-+, and then hard-specify that 
one in the future with a kernel parameter.

Enjoy!
Aaron J.


Jason Tower wrote:

>i get this when i run knoppix on a system hooked up to a crappy 15" 
>monitor.  try booting with the "knoppix screen=640x480" parameter
>
>jason
>
>On Monday 05 April 2004 23:18, Rob Rousseau KI4BKE wrote:
>  
>
>>Heya folks,
>>   One of the Hams that I know picked up a copy of Knoppix at our
>>booth this past weekend.   :-) Unfortunately, it appears he's having
>>some video problems.   :-( Anyone here know what might be the
>>trouble?   I'll pass it back to him, or just CC: him on it. Thank you
>>so much,
>>-Rob, KI4BKE
>>ps-I had a lot of fun on Sunday and was glad to get to see the guys I
>>knew and meet the ones that I hadn't met yet too.
>>
>>---BEGIN ORIGINAL MESSAGE---
>>Rob,
>>
>>Thanks for putting me on to the Triangle Linux User Group.  I picked
>>up a copy of Knoppix at the Linux Users Group table at the RARS Fest
>>yesterday, and I am looking forward to seeing how Linux looks and
>>feels.
>>
>>However, I tried to run it on a desktop I have here, but I seem to be
>>running into a display problem, and I wonder if you could possibly
>>help me, run this by someone who is familiar with Knoppix, or post
>>this to an appropriate list to see if anyone can figure out what I
>>might be doing wrong.
>>
>>I attempted to run Knoppix on a Pentium 133 MHz system with 131 meg
>>of RAM using the CD and a boot disk.  When I attempt to boot up, I
>>got the load prompt, and I typed in knoppix lang=us. (Once I saw that
>>I had a monitor problem, I tried several other commands as well, but
>>I'll describe them later.)
>>
>>The first indication of a problem was after I saw LOADING VMLINUZ and
>>LOADING MINIROOT.GZ.  I got an error message that said YOU PASSED AN
>>UNDEFINED MODE NUMBER.  PRESS <RETURN. TO SEE VIDEO MODES AVAILABLE,
>><SPACE> TO CONTINUE, OR WAIT 30 SECONDS.
>>
>>It always indicates that it is apparently seeing a VESA VGA.
>>
>>When I get this, I have tried selecting several different modes, and
>>also just hitting space, all with pretty much the same end result -
>>it keeps loading, but shortly thereafter, I always get another
>>message that says, ACPI: UNABLE TO LOCATE RSDP.
>>
>>After this, it looks like the loading process continues, but when it
>>is time for the display to come up, I get a display that looks like
>>it consists of 5 vertical ghosted images.  I can see the desktop
>>software, so I know it has been loaded, but the because of the
>>ghosted image, It is certainly nothing useful.
>>
>>Now, about all I know about the video is what I get from startup, and
>>it is as follows:
>>
>>BUS 0
>>DEVICE 13
>>FUNCTION 0
>>VENDOR ID 5333
>>DEVICE ID 8811
>>IRQ 11
>>
>>I did read through the docs on the disk, and based on what I saw
>>there, I tried knoppix xmodule=vesa, knoppix xmodule=fbdev,
>>fb=800x600 and knoppix-txt.  (Not all at the same time, of course.) 
>>Nothing seems to change the display.  I always see five ghosted
>>images.
>>
>>I am an absolute neophyte with Linux, so I am sure I am missing
>>something very basic here, and I would appreciate any advice you or
>>anyone else can give.  Please email me direct at
>>normany at mindspring.com if you can help.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Norman
>>---END ORIGINAL MESSAGE---
>>    
>>