What happened?
2.6.6 has a few quirks upon installation, a notable example of which is the Blank Console Screen problem, which are quite easy to solve, despite being a bit scary when they crop up.

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA!!!!!! Balnk console screen eh? Sounds VERY familiar. Lets just say i didn't just format and reinstall everything... how would one solve such a problem? and would it be smart to update the kernel before doing anything else? i'm thinking:

1) update kernel
2) swaret
3) apache
4) firebird

THEN new video drivers

I'm so glad I bothered to document my installation process... here you go.

The Blank Screen on Boot Problem
At very least, to avoid this you should reconfigure lilo to start in normal vga mode, otherwise your screen is likely to be blank in console mode. (Although it will still be possible to log into X by typing blind - thanks for the reminder, mipia.)

There is another way round this, though, to do with your kernel configuration.
I got my information on this at:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...mp;pagenumber=2

Using xconfig (or whatever), in Graphics support, enable Support for frame buffer devices and VESA VGA graphics support. In Console display driver support, Select compiled-in fonts, VGA 8x8 and VGA 8x16. Select everything in Logo configuration.

Insert the following line into lilo.conf:
vga = ask
Lilo will now query you at boot as to which resolution you want.


And yes, you DEFINITELY need to update the kernel before installing the video drivers and such. The ATI graphics driver is very sensitive, and requires a recompiling every time you modify your kernel.

I know it's for a system that's probably very different to yours, but in case it might be of any use, I posted my full installation process at: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=193662

heh, i got it working! you're guide was excellent btw. i'm doing a swaret right now, then i need to get apache working (i may be coming back for help on that one...) then firefox, which shouldn't take too long, then new video drivers!

Good luck!

I suppose this would be a bad time to draw your attention to the brand-new-as-of-last-night Slackware-current (Slack 10 rc1 - after upgrading Xorg chucked up font errors and refused to load when I tried to start X - was eventually solved by some fiddling with mkfontdir and xwmconfig, and a couple of restart attempts with KDE) and the new stable kernel 2.6.7 (http://www.kernel.org/) which looks to have come out this very morning, right? *evil grin*

d'oh! oh well... i set my swaret to slackware-current, does that pretty much mean i have current? and the 2.6.7 kernel... hmmm... i need an excuse to recompile anyways. maybe it'll help me get my sound working.

is it bad when lsmod returns absolutely nothing? i think i'm lost on the whole sound front...

Depends what time you last upgraded your packages, I fear, as a lot of new ones were uploaded (my Slackware-current was only about two days old, and swaret --upgrade produced a large list of new packages.)

I think your lsmod should be doing more than that, assuming you actually have any modules *g*. Have you tried using modprobe to add the modules that should be installed? Most of them should turn up automatically, but it's worth a try anyway.

As for your sound issues...
What do you have selected in the ALSA section of your kernel?
On my setup, I've got everything in the main ALSA section selected as a module, with the exception of the OSS sequencer API (which is set to yes), and debug and verbose printk (which are not selected).
Other than that, I have my soundcard's specific driver (ALSA > PCI devices > VIA 82C686A/B in my case) selected as a module.
It's worth noting that ALSA seems to like having all its bits set up as modules.
Out of interest, what soundcard are you using?

I'm going to have a stab at patching up to the 2.6.7 kernel either later this evening or sometime tomorrow - if I get there before you do, I'll let you know how it goes. I'm just living in the hope that the ATI drivers won't prove to have any issues with it.