How to boot any linux with old monitor?
 

I have a all in one older system with built in monitor.

1) For 1024x768 it wants 35.5khz Horiz, 87hz Vert interlaced or close to that or nothing shows.
2) For 800x600 it wants 35.86khz Horiz, 57.37hz Vert or close to that or you get a 2 inch not very readable screen.
3) For 640x480 I dont know what it wants but I have had linux that starts to work good with that only to loose it when it changes modes.

I am 100% sure its the monitor because if I open case and put a newer monitor on system lots of linux boot and I can see whats going on.
So maybe, get system started with better monitor and then set up for built in monitor????
How? What linux could be set up to run 1024x768 interlaced??? Or run
the Horiz and Vert this wants???
I have found only one linux that runs perfect on this system, that with xorg choice for x system somehow knows this is a strange monitor and give me several ways to run it.
1) If I pick "800x600 on old 14 inch monitor" system works fine.
2) If I pick "enter your Horiz and Vert ranges" and put in what monitor can do all works fine in 800x600.
3) If now I edit the xorg.conf file I can get 1024x768 interlace that works fine and save out new file.

Why not use this and be done with it? Well, because this looks like a system from APPLE, I would like to have a OS X look to the linux running. On the internet several have given linux a MAC OS X look but not on the linux that I have working.

ANY IDEAS?? ANY HELP???

What linux is working ? You can get an OSX theme on any version of linux. One other thing you could do, is use the xorg.conf that is working, copy it over to a version that hasn't been working. The more info you include, the more likely it is that someone will be able to help you. So the exact hardware, and the version of linux you have working, and the version you want working, that info will help people here help you.

If you are OK with the version you can get working, it'll be much easier to get an OSX theme than it will be to mess with xorg.conf.

Good luck..

David

The linux that works is PUPPY 2.17. The internet seems to tell me PUPPY is more homebrew than based on something else and that this older version works better with older video than the newer stuff?
The Mac system is a MAC SE that has a ITX MB and a MT209 like monitor.
The modeline is

"1024x768" 44.9 1024 1048 1208 1264 768 776 784 817 Interlace

Examples of other LINUX I have looked at, FEATHER, DSL both boot right away in a video mode with 4 side by side overlaping images only 2 inch high that cant be read. Others in a 800x600 mode only 2 inch high very hard to read. Even some versions of windows start as a no go and need the POWER STRIP program to get video correct.

Oh wow. That is some old hardware. Late 80's old. I looked it up, and the $3900 mac se came with a 20mb hard drive. That's MB, not gig, meg. My video card has over 10 times as much ram as the premium version of that computer has hard drive space. To be honest, you won't find any modern linux with a gui that will even run on that hardware. Puppy or some specialized version is your only hope I think. It's not even x86 based I don't think. It has an 8mhz cpu, with 1mb of ram. If you can find something with a gui that will run on it at all, stick with that. You might want to try a really really old version of yellow dog linux. With a very very lightweight desktop.

Puppy is compiled in it's own format, just for low resource computers like yours, it isn't based on redhat rpm's or debian's apt, but that doesn't mean it isn't good. They have .pup's for whatever programs you might need. If puppy works, my vote would be to stick with it, because not much else will. If you really really want to try something else, try yellow dog linux. It's the ppc version of redhat, if I remember, or started out that way anyway.

Good luck... you are a brave guy to try to work with antique hardware like that..... hope it's fun for you....

David

The Mac SE video was replaced with a OLD SVGA B/W IBM TYPE MONITOR.
The Mac SE MB was replaced with a IBM type ITX MB from Intel.
The Hard drive replaced with 100GB 2.5 laptop drive.
The DVD/CD replaced with a slim slot load laptop drive.
The floppy was replaced with a slim 2x USB floppy because
Intel ITX MB has no floppy port.

So it looks 80s but is newer, and does run WINDOWS and should run linux.

Back in its day I used to upgrade the memory (soldered in) of the orig all in one MACs. I have several of these MAC SEs and upgraded 1

Wow, now that's a cool mod. I've built a few, my favorite was a diamond plate aluminum toolbox, with 5 red laser case fans glowing out from behind radiation symbol fan grills. Into an old mac is damn cool though. One thing you could do, is take puppy's xorg.conf and copy it over to the version of linux you want to use. There isn't anything wrong with puppy though, I use it on low resource machines, and have my puppy linux on a usb drive, for emergency boots.

Even if just copying /etc/X11/xorg.conf from puppy doesn't work, you could look at it's xorg.conf and figure out the important bits, then use them in the version of linux that you prefer. If you have trouble with it, you could post it to a new thread, and maybe an xorg expert could point out the parts you'll need in the new version.

Have you tried Fluxbuntu ? Or the alternate install disk of ubuntu ? With a low resource window manager like icewm or fluxbox ?

Good luck....


David

budword
Cant get Fluxbuntu to boot on anything. Had NERO and PUPPY make up the CDs and DVDs and no boot. I see there is a big write up about others having same problem? In simple terms what is this fix or work around they talk about?
In past had another version of ubuntu that worked installed untill I replaced a bad DVD drive then it got messed up sometimes showing 1 drive, sometimes 3. A after install dont want you to replace hardware?

Hey, I didn't notice you were from Wisconsin. I am too, or was, from Menasha. Living in Costa Rica at the moment. :) If you can boot puppy and run it enough burn a cd, then I would use that, you might have to dig up the correct settings to burn it with nero, I'm not sure, I don't use it much, or well, ever really. The point is you have to burn it as an iso, and sometimes using windows software to do that doesn't work well, but if you installed ubuntu before, you probably handled that before, so maybe that isn't your problem. How much ram does that machine have again ? Fluxbuntu or really any of the ubuntu's need at least 256MB or ram to run the graphical installer. They do put out another version that they call the "alternate" install cd, just for computers with less than 256MB of ram. I would grab an iso of an alternate version, if you can't find one for fluxbuntu, then xbuntu is ok, and you can install fluxbox after that. You'll need to run the menu generation tool to use fluxbox after that, I think, unless they finally included a default menu, which they haven't in the past. Anyway......

Let us know how it goes....

David

P.S. Damn shame about the packers huh ? They should be in the superbowl... :(

P.P.S. Oh, just noticed you have had trouble after replacing hardware. You can replace hardware, it just after you do, you need to update the couple of files that auto mount those devices. /etc/fstab is the main one. A reinstall will do the trick for you this time though...

Hope is goes well....

David

Check out AntiX also, & its requirements.
I haven't run it much yet, but it is impressive -- especially fluxbox.