FC4 post-install blank screen on dell 600m

nutmeg2371 · 10-23-2005, 12:50 AM

Hi All,

I just installed FC4 on my Dell 600m. During the install, I'd get a completely blank screen right after anaconda started and hardware probing started. I have a feeling this was because of the fact that it couldn't find my monitor ("unknown monitor") when it probed. Installing in text mode fixed the problem, and the install eventually completed succesfully.

Now, when I boot, I get a completely blank screen (right after selecting linux from the boot loader). Could this be related to the previous monitor issue? If so, how do I fix.

(If this is useful info, I also have xp on the machine as well, the boot loader seems to be working ok.)

Any ideas?
Thank you!
meg

Kahless · 10-23-2005, 02:45 AM

how soon does it go to a black screen?

do you have it booting with a framebuffer console?

if so, try disabling the framebuffer to get a plain old vga console. if that works, it should be a matter of getting your xorg.conf set up correctly for your box to make everything work.

nutmeg2371 · 10-23-2005, 02:50 AM

it goes blank after initializing some hardware - right before popping up any sort of GUI. Since I last posted, I've been able to boot with an external monitor, but I don't know how to set it up to work with the laptop's lcd.

I'm not sure how to disable the framebuffer? Given that it works with an external monitor, is this still something I should try?

Either way, I assume that something just isn't conifgured correctly for the laptop's lcd, and I can boot with the external monitor in order to take care of that - I just don't know how.

never had to setup my own box/hardware before with linux....

Thanks very much for the quick reply!

EclipseAgent · 10-23-2005, 01:05 PM

Try opening the xorg.conf file
Look for the section similar to:

Section "Device"
BoardName "CyberBlade/xp4"
BusID "1:0:0"
Driver "vesa"
Identifier "Device[0]"
VendorName "Trident"
EndSection

Where it says Driver rename what you have there to vesa

nutmeg2371 · 10-23-2005, 05:55 PM

Thanks for the replies!
I was able to fix it without manually editing xorg.conf. I just booted with an external monitor, and random system-config-display, and chose something similar to my monitor (mine wasn't listed). I just had no idea that system-config-display existed or where it was, so hopefully this post might later help other newbies

Thanks all.