I just upgraded a default Slack 10 install to the new 2.6.8.1 kernel on a Dell 300m laptop. The upgrade went good but when i boot into my new kernel i get no video output after i hit enter on the lilo boot screen. The hard drive light blinks so i know its booting and i'll give it a few minutes and then (still no video) i can type in my username and password and the hd light blinks some more, then i type in startx and then the video will kick in and will show me my desktop. If i log out of KDE it goes back to no video. Whats the deal with that! and how am i going to fix this problem?

ty

As root, open the /etc/lilo.conf file for editing.

Comment out all of the VESA lines (framebuffer lines).

Make sure that "vga=normal" line is uncommented.

Save file.

Execute the "lilo" command as root to install lilo again.

Reboot.

awsome! thanks...it worked great. Now my question is why i have to do that for the new kernel. With the default 2.4.26 the one uncommented was vga = 791. so what doesn't that work in the new kernel? Is there any way that i can use something other then vga = normal because i liked having the smaller text.

I'm not exactly sure, but a guess is...

That the upgraded kernel you installed didn't have framebuffer consoles activated in it. AFAIK, the vga= line you mention is a framebuffer mode. The old kernel you had been using must have had framebuffer console's enabled.

You may not like my recommendation of what you should do when you have some freetime, but, I think it would be a tremendous learning experience to get into trying to compile your own kernels. Yeah, it will take a few times perhaps, and you won't really know exactly what's going on at first, but you will learn.

IMHO, compilling a kernel is a very good way of learning more details about the operating system (which helps with troubleshooting the problems like you had earlier with the framebuffer console).

If you get into compiling your own kernels then you will be able to select any options you like (including the framebuffer options).

i concur

kernel compilation was the first subject i tackled with linux after my install.
it was a little frustrating at the time and it took a number of attempts
before i started to get consistently successful results, but i am now very
happy i went through that learning curve.

Thats what im trying to nail down is getting compiling new kernels down. Everytime i try it i run into a different set of problems. I have found that Slack has been the least trouble so far, but still getting problems with the PCMCIA and SD card slots, in the old kernel the cardmanager recognized them and said it was monitoring two slots, however with the new 2.6.8.1 the card manager says it can't find any slots to monitor. I guess i'll have to keep plugging away at this whole kernel thing. Also, one more quesiton. There are alot of things that are enabled in the kernel that i dont know what they are, how bad is it to leave these in there. i.e. the modules for ati cards were enabled when i was going though it, i removed them, but how bad would it be to leave them in. does it hurt my performance any? thanks for the help

**EDIT**
as im typing this im recompiling my kernel. However i have a few questions. Since ive already compilied it once and it can boot, its just not quite right and i want to change some stuff so i go back into /usr/src/linux and run make menuconfig. I just finished selecting what i want to put in/take out and now do i run make bzImage, make modules, make modules_install??? or do i have to make clean something or other(not sure) just confused on this part. and do i have to copy over the System.map and .config files again to /boot, or are thoes going to be ok?

**EDIT#2** ok i think ive got everything working like it should be except for the PCMCIA slot. on boot it says that the cardmgr isnt' monitoring any slots, but if i go into the /etc/rc.d directory and run ./rc.pcmcia restart it comes back and says it is monitoring 2 slots. dunno why its doing this, anybody want to take a stab at it?