Tecra/Protege stops booting at Xvesa and Xorg (SOLVED)

[Barrington]

Well I originally sent it to myself!*?!! which is why you didn't get it, but now the one i sent to you is sitting the OutBox so I'll just post it here.....

Hi Richard,
I have sent you this (dccprobe.txt and xorgwizard) before I start on your suggestions.

I too am confused! I do not know why it now boots correctly without pfix=ram,nox or any xorgwizard changes. I just booted 3.01 just now it it boots fine, albeit with a message that it didn't shut down normally and would I like to run xorgwizard again. I just typed xwin and all came up good.

By the way, do I need the USB drive plugged in after I boot?

How do you suggest, after having upgraded to395 (4alpha5) and going back to 3.01 with same pupsave file? Should I remove (hide) the pupsave and start again?

FYI, this lappy is my wife's (my old one that got too slow for the stuff I do-embedded PIC/PSoC development and PCB design). She uses it mainly for Email and web browsing. My goal is to set up a separate partition on Tosh for Puppy and run it from there (maybe today as 3.01 seems to work). To do so may give me (us? thanks for your perseverance) an opportunity to start again on getting the configuration correct.

I sucessfully ran scandisk (no disk errors) and defrag in preparation. I have 3G of the 6 G free and plan to set asside 2G for puppy until I'm satisfied all is well, then Puppy can have it all.

Barrington

[rerwin]

Thanks for the file. The name implies that you sent both ddcprobe.txt and xorgwizard, but only the wizard is there. That is good enough. I got nit-picky because the listing you included in your early post puts a space character at the end of each line; and I thought that might cause trouble. The wizard you sent has no trailing blank, so that's fine.

Is the file you sent the xorgwizard that you see in 3.01 /usr/sbin? But now you can't run 3.01 because the pup_save is 395. I think you need to start over with a fresh pup_save, and put it on the hard drive. You told me you already see one there, so that's what you have been using. You can confirm that by using pmount to see where /mnt/home is -- sda1 or sdb1, the HD or stick. If the stick (sdb1) is not mounted, you can remove it.

To start fresh, just boot 3.01 with pfix=ram. If it hangs after the two pink "probing..." lines, you definitely need the fix. Enter ctrl-c to get the prompt. You know how grab the fixed version from the stick, to /usr/sbin. Please be sure to use the fixed version that has your oem: line and not the edid: line. Once copied over, enter "xorgwizard" to test it. If that works, enter xwin" and you are in business. (To preserve the 395 pup_save, just rename it -- pup_save-395.sfs.) Then reboot and create a new pup_save file.

If you want to dual-boot the laptop without needing the CD, there is a slick package that does it safely -- Lin'n'WinNewB. -- here: http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwi ... innwin.htm
Richard

[OldYogi]

How much of the changes you were discussing with Barrington earlier in the year got incorporated in to Alpha6?

I have gotten Puppy successfully running off of a usb stick on my desktop, and similarly on a Thinkpad T43, but all of that was preparatory to my real goal which is to resurrect an old Portege 3110CT, with Win98 (not SE!).
I've expanded the memory to its max -- 196 I think.

Booting with WakePup2, and my pup save frugal install on the usb stick, the boot sequence gets to "personal config script /etc/rc.d/rc.local", and then drops to the prompt #. At that point I've run xorgconfig. but none of configuration variants variants I have tried get me anywhere.

the output of ddcprobe is essentaily the same as what was posted in the earlier thread, although the resolution doesnt get to 1024. the screen is smaller. the card is the same Trident card you were struggling with earlier. I'm not sure what the corect refresh rates are.

I could try Alpha 7 -- would it help?

I'm not sure where to pick up in the sequence of suggestions you were making earlier.

I just looked at the xorg.conf that was generated during install -- it has the VendorName as Trident Mcrosystems, and the BoardName as Cyber 9525. I didn't give it that info. In fact, none of the data I entered while xorgconfig was running is in this file. the head of the file says it is a "Special base config file used in Puppy Linux"

But the Monitor section has no numbers for HorizSync and VertRefresh, The Modes section has no numbers, and there is no Screen section.
The Device section lists alot of options that are repeated in a file xorg.conf-new,which is in the root directory. there is also a file with a garbled name that clearly was supposed to say TRIDENT MICROSYSTEMS INC. That file is the xorg.conf file that has my input into xorg.conf. Why didn't it wind up in /etc/X11? I tried copying it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, but I still got the two pink lines.

help will be appreciated.

[rerwin]

OldYogi,
Thanks for your post, keeping this thread alive.

To my dismay, I have not been diligent in submitting updates for the fix to puppy4. I am in the process of consolidating fixes into the new alpha7 version of the wizard. I believe it should also work with 3.01/2 and hope I can have it work with 2.14 so I can submit it for use in TEENpup2008.

So check the alpha7 bug-reporting thread later today for the latest version of the fix. You say that ddcprobe shows yours to be one of the Trident CYBER (I assume) adapters - 8820 or 8620; I have added yet another to the new fix: 9540. If yours is none of these, please post your "oem:" line so I can add it to the fix.
Richard

[OldYogi]

the output of my ddcprobe is exactly the same as that reported by Barrington on Jan. 14, except I don't get the last two lines, reporting modes of 1024x768.

the Toshiba Spec Sheet for the Portege 3110Ct says:

Video
Trident Cyber9525
64-bit Graphics Accelerator
32-BIT PCI local bus support
BitBLT hardware
Integrated 2.5MB Video Memory

and for the display it says:

Display
Poly-silicon TFT active-matrix color display
10.4

[lobius]

Just for future reference, and anybody else googling this card, it uses the Realtek RTL8139 chipset, the 8139too module in puppy 3.01 and later should be manually loaded in the network configuration bit to get it working.

[bde]

Put xorgwizard2 from: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... ch&id=6544, linked on page 3 to /usr/sbin, ran xorgwizard2 from this location (./xorgwizard2), chose 'Xorg', found the following text in pink color on top of the screen:
"Probing video hardware, please wait "
Next, it disappeared with black screen and nothing happens after that -- kind of hung up. The ddcprobe output (attached) shows noedid at the end. Tried to follow through the postings in this topic without success. Would it be possible to get X working with this noedid as I saw that other people don't have this situation. Is there anything I can do to enable edid? Thanks for help. I have 96 M RAM on this machine.

Tried to attach the ddcprobe.txt file I generated, and don't see it attached in preview. I'm copying content of this below:
========================
vbe: VESA 2.0 detected.
oem: MagicGraph 256 AV 44K PRELIMINARY
memory: 2496kb
mode: 640x400x256
mode: 640x480x256
mode: 800x600x16
mode: 800x600x256
mode: 1024x768x16
mode: 1024x768x256
mode: 1280x1024x256
mode: 80x60 (text)
mode: 320x200x32k
mode: 320x200x64k
mode: 640x480x32k
mode: 640x480x64k
mode: 640x480x16m
mode: 800x600x32k
mode: 800x600x64k
mode: 800x600x16m
mode: 1024x768x32k
mode: 1024x768x64k
mode: 1024x768x16m
mode: 1600x1200x256
mode: 1600x1200x32k
mode: 1600x1200x64k
noedid
=====================

[rerwin]

bde,
Thanks for your posting. I replicated your situation (with a modified ddcprobe.txt file) on my problematic Tecra8000 using puppy 4 alpha 7 and saw no problem. It has 128MB and no swap file (or hard drive, for that matter).

I assume you are running 3.01, but maybe the alpha (which has the fix) or soon-to-be-released beta will handle low memory better, I have a friend who ran alpha7 (3.97) on a 48MB 133MHz Tecra, although quite slowly. But I think we ended up using Xvesa, because Xorg did hang up, perhaps the same as yours did. (But Xvesa is not an option for you, since it , too, hangs on your Portege.)

I suggest making a swap partition. If you don't need anything else on the drive, you can do that from the command line after CD-booting "puppy noram,nox". If you have to co-exist with Windows, that's more complicated. Here is a standalone version of gparted that might help:
http://www.brunolinux.com/01-First_Thin ... arted.html
if it can display.

Hope this helps.
Richard

[bde]

Thank you rerwin for quick feedback, and I successfully booted to X using puppy-400alpha7-397-k2.6.21.7-seamonkey as you suggested. What I did not succeed was installing on /dev/hda1. I'll post this install question in a separate thread (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=27772).

I don't have MS Windows (wiped it out). Used a FreeDOS bootfloppy to boot. I have an IDE hard disk (/dev/hda) and an USB DVD-ROM to put the puppy CDROM (that comes out as C drive when FreeDOS is booted). The RAM size is 96 M. I also have linld on the floppy (A). I went to C drive, and issued the command:

a:\linld image=vmlinuz initrd=initrd.gz "cl=root=/var/ram pfix=noram,nox"

This booted to shell environment. Ran xorgwizard, chose 1024x768x24 bit. After coming back to shell environment, ran xwin that loaded the X successfully. The responsiveness in X was exceptionally good, and was very surprised knowing that I only have 96 M of RAM. I was thinking it would be like a molass, and turned out to be completely opposite.

I'd be happy if only I could do a full install on harddisk.

[JacquiG]

I hope it's okay I jump in here...I've run into video problems with my install and am hoping you might be able to help....

My Laptop:
-Toshiba Portege 3025CT
-300mhz, Intel Pentium
-6 gig HD (not expandable)
-96 meg RAM (not expandable)
-bootable floppy
-docking station
-pcmcia cd drive (non-bootable and have never been able to get dos drivers to work)
- usb 1.0 (have no idea if this is accessible at boot - I suspect not)
-currently have XP Pro installed

I have installed Puppy 4 using Lin'n'Win NewB with dual book and can boot into Linux. Frugal install to HDD and intend to wipe out XP (not until I get this working though ).

In the Xorgwizard:
- If I choose Xorg I hang on a black screen. Nothing works other than power cycle.
- If I choose Xvesa I end up with this no matter what resolution I choose...
http://picasaweb.google.com/jacqui.gogu ... ZH9Uhyv25E

I've added pfix=nox to menu.lst and can get to the command prompt. I've run ddcprobe and it appears to be the same as some of those shown above. The lines with **** I can not see b/c I don't know how to do a page break at the linux command and that's all that can appear on a single screen. I do know I have the NeoMagic MagicGraph....

****vbe: VESA 2.0 detected.
****oem: Copyright 1997 TRIDENT MICROSYSTEMS INC.
****memory: 2560kb
****mode: 640x480x16m
****mode: 800x600x16m
mode: 800x600x32k
mode: 800x600x64k
mode: 640x480x32k
mode: 640x480x64k
mode: 640x400x256
mode: 800x600x256
mode: 800x600x16
mode: 640x480x256
edid:
edid: 1 0
id: 5081
eisa: TOS5081
serial: 00000000
manufacture: 20 1995
input: analog signal.
screensize: 23 17
gamma: 1.000000
dpms: RGB, no active off, no suspend, no standby
timing: 720x400@70 Hz (VGA 640x400, IBM)
timing: 640x480@75 Hz (VESA)

I've gotten ddcprobe to print to screen but I have absolutely no idea what to do from here. I've read through the whole post and quite confused now

Thanks so much for any help you can offer.

p.s. Oh yeah, I'm completely new to Linux...so step by step and 'stupid' instructions are appreciated. Hence my confusion.

[Dougal]

Greetings, Jacqui with a Q (those are usually the good folks from Oz and the UK, like Bridget with a D...).

Unfortunately, the lines you are missing include the one line which is crucial to solve this problem: the "oem:" line.
To be able to see those lines you can run "ddcprobe | more", or just use Shift+PageUp to scroll up in the console...

Once you post that line here rerwin will be able to tell you exactly what you can do with it (no rudeness intended!).


Something unrelated that you might want to look into, since you have little RAM:
You should check if a "shmfs" is mounted at boot. The output of "mount" should let you know, it being mounted on /dev/shm.
If it is, you'll want to disable that, as it just takes up ram and isn't really used (the only application I know that uses it in Puppy is xfdiff, which runs ok without it).
Find the place it is mounted (most likely in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit) and comment out that line (put a "#" at the beginning). Alternately, you could just add "umount /dev/shm" to /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

[muggins]

JacquiG,

also you mightn't be aware that puppy has a nifty little commandline editor called mp. So to edit the file Dougal mentioned, it's:

Code: Select all

mp /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

When you're using mp, Control+A gives you the menu.

[rerwin]

JacquiG,
I think your problem is that Xorg just doesn't run in less than 128MB, but that is easily remedied. You need a swap file or partition on your HD for Puppy to run decently. But how to do that within your constraints? BTW, your data shows that you have the Trident video, not NeoMagic; but no matter.

I am rusty on making the swap file in WinXP, but there are explanations in the forum or wiki. I think there is a command you use to create a zeroed file, in Win, top level; name it "pupswap.swp", for standardization. Then you can boot to Puppy (pfix=nox), run "cd /; mkswap pupswap.swp" to format it as a swap file. I'm not sure of the details beyond that, but it involves the "swapon" command. I have had trouble using that with a file, so I hope someone can clarify this process.

Eventually, you will want a swap partition, but do not use WinXP to try to reduce your main partition to make room, because it will destroy your installation. You can shrink it safely once you get Puppy running fully, with Gparted.
Richard

[JacquiG]

Ok...

Dougal (Jacqui with a Q being French Canadian
ddcprobe returns:
vbe: VESA 2.0 detected.
oem: MagicGraph 128XD 42K SVGA BIOS
Memory: 1984kb
640x480x256....
When I look at System Info and Devic Manager in WinXP it does list NeoMagic MagicGraph?


Dougal/muggins/rerwin
I typed at the command line 'mp /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit' but have absolutely no idea what to with what I'm seeing. I've scrolled through trying to make sense of anything having to do with shmsf, but not sure what to comment out and I don't see shmsf, or any reference to it, anywhere in the file.

Should I worry about a swap file later or do that now?

Thanks...
J

[muggins]

JacquiG,

Forget about /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit for the moment, and try Rerwin's advice about creating a swapfile.

see here regarding creating a swapfile. Note the recommendation not to use the dd command on an XP ntfs file system, but rather to create the swapfile using windows fsutil command. You probably would want a swapfile of the order of 128Mbytes.

Code: Select all

fsutil file createnew C:\pup.swp 128000000

Once you've used windows to create the c:\pup.swp file, if you then reboot into puppy, with the pfix=nox prefix, you would then need to do:

Code: Select all

mkswap /mnt/home/pup.swp
swapon /mnt/home/pup.swp

Run the command free to see whether puppy is using it. you should see your original memory of 96M, plus swap memory of 128M.

To get puppy to use this on booting, you then need to edit the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local, and add the line:

Code: Select all

mkswap /mnt/home/pup.swp

Definitely use the mp commandline editor to add this line, but it's only one line, and the file rc.local is a lot simpler than rc.sysinit.

Code: Select all

mp /etc/rc.d/rc.local

If adding a swapfile still doesn't get xorg working, maybe you should consider checking out dsl, as I'm pretty sure their framebuffer support would work, plus you can install DSL frugally & boot it with a floppy.

@Rerwin,

do you think that the xorg_xfbdev-7.3-1.pet module could support JacquiG's graphics via framebuffer?

[JacquiG]

Created swap file and confirmed it's presence in XP
Booted into Linux and typed at command
mkswap /mnt/home/pup.swp

Message returned:
mkswap: can't open '/mnt/home/pup.swp' : No such file or directory

[muggins]

Yes,

sorry about that. puppy doesn't have a /mnt/home yet, as it hasn't got to the stage of saving your configuration in a pup_save.2fs file.

Instead try:

Code: Select all

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/data
mkswap /mnt/data/pup.swp
swapon /mnt/data/pup.swp

Then, if the above is successful, (which you can tell by running the command free), then try running xorgwizard, and see whether it gets past the black screen.

[JacquiG]

No problem...

Ok, typed in
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/data
Returned
mkswapmount: /dev/hda1 already mounted or /mnt/data busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/hda1 is mounted on /initrd/mnt/dev_ro2

Typed in
mkswap /mnt/data/pup.swp
Returned
mkswap: can't open '/mnt/data/pup.swp' : No such file or directory

Thinking these are not desirable results I stopped there and posted here...

[muggins]

JacquiG,

If you enter ls /pup.swp is it found?

Then, (assuming yes), try mkswap /pup.swp

[JacquiG]

ls: cannot access /pup.swp: No such file or directory

Odd, it's there in Windows ?