Can I have problems with this old videocard? Xorg and VESA how-to request.

[budulay]

Hi
As far as I understand it gives you that message when you try to load X11 desktop?
Then you should change screen resolution and sync in your xorg.conf file from command line(type mc and you will get a great two-panel file manager. navigate to the file, and then click F4 fo edit it).

If I get you wrong and you are getting the message while the system itself is loading, it means that you need to turn off the bootsplash in your /etc/lilo.conf file. But I have no idea how to do it if you couldn't even get to the terminal since the monitor doesn't read anything.

[OSMIUM76]

Well as I insert the live CD my machine shows me the boot options; whatever I choose I get a black screen and I see a message floating in it by the LCD monitor it says what I said. So I can launch the terminal as I said I don't know what command to give. For MC you mean the Midnight Commander? If so it should be possible for me even if I never used the Norton Commander.

[budulay]

Sorry, I misread your post and did not noticed the part about live cd.
I not quite understand what you are saying:
Could you, please list what boot options you are talking about(I only used 5.8 live cd so I am not sure what you mean).
So when your monitor starts too complain, you have a command line, right?(it should be a command line login screen)

For MC you mean the Midnight Commander?

Yeah, that's it.
If you can launch it, you should try what I wrote before.

PS.
I had problems launching X-window from 5.8 live cd on two boxes, probably b/c of some problem with nvidia video card. Both time I had working CLI.
After I installed normal VL version, everything went fine.

[OSMIUM76]

These are the options:
VESA
Probe
Command Line
Autoprobe
Alternate Autoprobe
MemTest

IF you press TAB you reach the setting-line. All the lines are very similar: in VESA you can read "vesa", in other options "cli", "verbose"... in all I read a number "791" about the resolution mode... probably changing this number I can get something!

[OSMIUM76]

Well an answer: but what does it means "processor architecture" I read on the Distrowatch site? I see i386, i486, i586... I don't understand... I understood these are the minimum system requirement about the CPU but I should be wrong because Linpus Lite shows i386 when it needs a CPU at least of 366 MHz (and 128 MB of RAM); Vector i486 when you say it runs on 586 architectures... So I misunderstood or Distrowatch provides uncorrect infos???

[caitlyn]

No, the information of Distrowatch is correct.  VL will run on any 586 (classic Pentium) system.  The Live version needs 128MB of RAM to run in a worthwhile way.  VL Light will run in as little as 32MB of RAM if installed (not live).

Are you certain your SIS chipset is VESA compliant?  A lot of older chipsets are not.  My laptop doesn't work with VESA.  Did you try running vxconf?  Choose the Probe option and see if that works.  Don't specify a VGA resolution (no VGA=791) and see if probing your video card works.

[OSMIUM76]

If "i386" means an Intel 386 class CPU then Distrowatch doesn't say the truth because it says i486 for Vector for both 5.9.1SOHO and 5.9 versions; surely it cannot say the truth about Linpus Lite (i386) when the official site tells about a CPU at least running at 366!!! Maybe I'm wrong (it's late and if I spend another minute to the keyboard I'll fall asleep on the chair) tomorrow I'll give another eye.

With the Vector Lite Live CD I tried all the options but all of them gave me a videomode not reachable by my LCD monitor... no problem on my ACER Extensa. I tried with Linpus Lite and as I said I had the pointer fully working, a black screen with banded artifacts. I have no more clues for you, sorry.

I didn't use vxconf; I didn't know the behaviour of my SiS.

[OSMIUM76]

Up!

[tomh38]

Congratulations!  Have some toast!

[caitlyn]

It might be helpful to other users with similar hardware if you post what you did you did to get X working for you.  It would also be helpful if you changed the title of the thread to add [SOLVED].

I'm glad you got it figured out whatever you did.