Boots to black - my fault probably.

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:22 am

The latest LiveCD is awesome! Everything was working fine after the installation, but then I screwed around with "autoboot" and now I get the GUI LILO and select "zm" and shortly thereafter it scrolls through some tests and all are OK then the screen goes black, right when it switches video modes I'm sure, so I know I'm getting some funky video setting. I have an actual S3 Trio 64V+ card in the machine which is antique, and a matchingly antique monitor, although I've ordered another one of each...

How do I interrupt LILO and then how do I fix my video mode, do I mess around with /etc/lilo.conf if I can somehow boot the computer another way?

SemiNOOB alert here, so please be gentle.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:29 am

if you press alt ctrl f1 do you get a text login prompt?

James

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:42 am

Thanks for your reply!

I thought it was Left-Alt+F2, or Ctrl+Alt+F2, so that might explain my problem. Seems every distro uses a different keystroke...

When should I press C-A-F1, after POST?

Post by **cordel** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:45 am

You can do that any time after it finnishes booting. Then you will have to google for the correct tool (something like videodrake ) to switch the video mode back to something that works.
Regards,
Cordel

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 3:05 am

OK, so even after I get the black screen, I can press that key sequence and it will come back to a text only mode, or something like that?

Sorry for the stoopid questions. I've got 20 years of DOS and Windows under my belt, but my UNIX is so rusty as to be nonexistent.

Post by **cordel** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 3:29 am

No worries, I was in the same place 18 months ago.
You may even have a epiphiny like I did

It will be one of three methods.
ctl+alt+F?
ctl+F?
alt+F?

F? being any of the numbered F keys usualy F1 to F6 (F6 and some times F7 being the graphical display). Each one is it's own console.
This should get you to a dos style login screen. I forget the paswords but those are documented here on the forum.

After that you should be able to run the tool (harddrake or videodrake... something of that nature any way (You need to google that one) and correct your video settings.
I managed to lose one monitor in my learning linux so make sure you never over drive what the monitor is capable of.

Regards,
Cordel

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 3:55 pm

Sweet! Well, actually semi-sweet.

I got my tty's up, 1 thru 6, and I found XFdrake and ran it and set my monitor to 800x600 at 60Hz because that's as good as it'll do. The test went OK, but when I boot up it comes up in tty1, and when I switch to console 7, which I assume is my GUI, all I get is a flashing cursor up in the corner of the screen.

Every POST and boot test is [OK],... any suggestions?

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 4:04 pm

login and try startx

James

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 4:06 pm

Ah screw it...

I'm taking the muffin-eater noobie way out and re-installing...

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 4:08 pm

i used to too lol
but if you have altered your xconfig it wont start at boot without being told to now. You can run it manually and then make it auto run if you need to

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 5:27 pm

When I ran XFdrake it asked me if I wanted it to autostart XOrg and I said yes, but it still boots into the tty (which I never asked for, it must have known somehow I was a noob.)

When I type XFree86, I get an error regarding the XOrg.0.log and something about an I/O error, hence my $#@%! frustration

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 6:17 pm

ok then id go for the muffin eater way lol

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 6:47 pm

One dozen muffins, coming up

tamathumper · Post by **tamathumper** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 7:56 pm

Done, reinstalled and working once again.

Now i just need to update Firefox, reapply the security settings, and try not to redo what I did to screw it up in the first place

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 8:36 pm

good luck
£10 says u break something again

lol

James

ZoneMinder Forums

Boots to black - my fault probably.

Boots to black - my fault probably.

When?

OK

Sweet.

@#$@#

XOrg

Baker's Dozen

Done