I'm moving from an all-win98 to a dual boot with debian-sarge. Right away I ran into problems getting video resolution set to 1024x768 like i'm accustomed to in windows instead of the default 800x600.

After some google time I found out that dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 was what I needed in order to get this done. It worked and I had the resolution that I needed. Then In my complete n00bness, I managed to mangle the /etc/init.d directory so bad that the best solution was to format the whole thing, re-install and start over.

I made NO hardware changes, only re-ran the install CD. (I did do one thing different, I used "linux26" instead of "linux" to start the install, but I can't imagine why a more recent kernal would have anything to do with this.)

Everything proceeded as it did the last time. I answered everything the same as before. But when it reached the part where it starts gdm and allows me to log in for the first time, the video is plagued with horizontal lines that look like t.v. static appearing randomly all over the screen rendering it VERY difficult to read. Again, I ran dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and gave it full details on monitor h-sync and v-sync frequencies and supported resolutions, along with the 'PCI:00:12:0" bus-id for the S3 ViRGE video card. This helped some, and allowed me to use the 1024x768 i'm used to in windows (with this same hardware). However the lines of 'static' are still there, across the bottom third of the screen.

I've put a screenshot and some other info on my website at:

h t t p[colon][slash][slash]peculiar[dot]wcw[dot]net[slash]debian[slash]

If anyone can help me with this I'd really appreciate it. I really don't want to re-install a fourth time if I can avoid it.

Thanks

I assume you are using the s3virge driver as provided by XFree86.
There seem to be some driver options you may want to try in the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file in the section device

http://www.xfree86.org/current/s3virge.4.html

E.g. the Option "slow_edodram" and the Option "NoAccel" seem in the first hand worth of trying out as they mention to try them in the case of image corruption.

Yes, At this point I wouldnt know how to use anything that wasn't provided stock.

I tried both of those, along with another one that looked like it might help "shadowFB"...


I tried each of these options, separately and in combination, both with and without the explicit 'true', restarting gdm each time to insure that it's reading the updated configuration file and trying all screen resolutions and refresh freqs... so far, nothing has made any difference.

I'm probably reaching here, but is it at all possible that my problem is simply that the 2.6 kernal just doesn't like my admitedly aincient video card?
If so, How would I go about changing to the 2.4 kernal? Can I get that done without a fifth re-install?

You may also want to try with the more generic vesa driver, I don't know if that card has good enough VESA capabilities though.



If you want to try with a 2.4 kernel, you can install such by To determine the most suitable kernel image package for your hardware, pick from this list:

It turns out that using the VESA driver did the trick and I can forget about trying to fallback to the 2.4 kernal

*note to self, S3 ViRGE on older mobo = VESA video driver*