Configuration issues - Was Boot to Black Screen ;)

[Irritated]

Well, As I was messing about trying a few different options to get x to start, after I'd tried a few xorg.conf options and whilst using fb default setup from vasm, I decided to throw in a vga= option, actually vga=791, to the boot command, which was kind of consistent with the options being specified to xorg.conf - Bingo, there, suddenly was X!!! Whilst I understood that the vga= option on boot only has an impact to console display, it gives the impression that if boot couldn't make a transition from like to like it was just falling over? Does that sound crazy? If I launch without vga=xxx then it continues to give me the black screen and system suspended.

Well, having got this far, I'm left with a number of immediate issues to resolve;

1. Booting from grub fails with a message - No setup signature found. I've tried a few options

root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.12 root=/dev/hda2 ro vga=792
initrid (hd0,1)/boot/initrid (tried this a couple of ways and with and without)

Anybody experienced with grub boot commands for VL?

2. VL launch now chooses to shutdown my network card. Whereabouts is the network/internet connections configured manually?

3. Everything suggests Alsa has failed to set up sound correctly, it should be trying to connect the ES18xx driver, is there a way I can do this manually? Alsa also seemed no go on DSL, but some software (xmms) didn't work, but others did, without, apparently, having the sound chip configured? 

So, with every little step of progress, seems there's always going to be something more to do?

[nightflier]

Glad to see you're still here and hacking away. 

1. - not familiar with grub
2. - assuming you have tried "vasm" and that didn't do it, what happens when you (as root, at command line) issue commands:

Code:

ifconfig eth0 up
dhcpcd eth0

3. - it's worth running "alsaconfig" a second time after install and see if it picks it up.

[Irritated]

Uh??? Switched on last night and netork card was connecting fine (failed on one occasion only) I reckon Nightflier has been floating around making corrections while I sleep?

Finally got vasm to run alsaconf from command line and eventually it decided to install driver SB16 instead of the ES18xx which is what it's supposed to be. After a couple of boots finally managed to adjust master volume (always resets to 0 on shutdown, it seems, irritating). Now, xmms will play audio cd and produce sound - Yay. VLC will play cd but not produce sound and xine will not load at all (I believe xine is a player is it not?)

Also could not find a way to access the alsa mixer?

I'd like to get it set up up so that all players will play sound, including web browser. Any ideas anyone?

Also still need a grubber to help define load command for grub. What is the standard form LiLo load command to get VL6 started?

[gamfa]

Also could not find a way to access the alsa mixer?

Open a terminal and type "alsamixer"

[nightflier]

Since XMMS does produce sound, open it and hit Ctrl-p to get to preferences. Look at the "Audio I/O Plugins" tab and see what plugins it uses, then try to duplicate that in your other applications.

[lagagnon]

You still do not have the mixer set up correctly. Go back into alsamixer in a terminal and readjust things - use "m" key to mute and unmute channels, arrow keys to adjust sliders. Make sure PCM is unmuted.

[Irritated]

Invoking alsamixer from the console gives me;

alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory

Invoking alsamixer from a terminal gives me, actually, the same

I must say, the terminal is a bit of a mess, it doesn't show me what I'm typing until after I've hit enter, which is ok if I'm doing tiddly things but a bit inconvenient for doing anything serious. I believe there is a way one can configure this?

[lagagnon]

Invoking alsamixer from the console gives me;

alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory

That means alsa is not working properly, meaning you missed the sound config step during install, your driver module is not correct for your sound card or your sound card is faulty.

Open vasm, super, hardware, alsaconf and try resetting your sound system.
If that fails show us the output to:

lspci
lsmod

[nightflier]

SB16 .. that's an ISA card, isn't it? I remember setting one of those up long time ago, it was a bear. There was an additional step that included "isapnp".

I bet your xmms is set to use OSS, taking a shortcut to the hardware somehow.

How's that for wild speculation?