Hi there!

I'm trying to install Debian on a machine in my living-room. It's plugged into the television only. I've mananged to install the base system (Etch, net-install) just fine. But when I run startx, I get a garbled screen and then the xserver closes (sorry, i'm at work and don't have the trace-output).

I really want to replace windows in my living room, and this is hampering my efforts!!

any help, would be brilliant.

miner49er

Dont want to hi-jack your thread but I also have TV out probs with my ATI "all-in-wonder" Like - no TV out when I run "X". It displays during the text phase during boot-up.

Likewise I really want to ditch MSWindos in favour of Linux for my mult-media machine. I'm running PCLOS which has got closer to running the ATI than any other distro. Try the live CD and it may well work for your more modern card.

Any siggestions would be appreciated. I'm even prepared to buy a new video card if there is one out there guaranteed to work under linux!

IK

Well, no one has answered anyway so don't worry about it!
Maybe, it's just too difficult a problem for everyone...

I have another PC running debian and gentoo, using a GForce4 ti, I havn't tried TV out with that yet but I have read that ATI is NOT the best card for linux.

It doesn't help that i'm trying to set the ATI based machine up, whilst only being connected to a TV - no other PC nearby (it's upstairs) to get information from. I'll keep trying different things though.

Yeah, must remove all Micrsoft presence in my house :-)

I don't like this Genuine Advantage stuff that has forced itself on my PC (no, I don't have a genuine cp of windows - think of the poor starving 'developers'). I know linux can do all I need, so refuse to buy a copy.

I've never understood why TV out is such a huge driver problem for these cards. I would have expected most of the work to have been done in the hardware on-board. Thus the "composite video" should be just another monitor output for use if necessary and pretty much independent of any operating system.

In a similar vein - my son just offered what might be a simple and neat solution which circumvents all the software. It's simply a VGA/composite video adapter lead made exactly for this purpose and costs about $18 from RCA. It's in the post to me now. If when received it works, I will let you know.

IK

That sounds really cool, make sure you post and let me know how you get on :-)

Sorry - the converter lead gave me only a blank screen. I've a feeling it was made especially for an old MATROX card but it certainly was no good with this ATI. I shall start another thread as my ATI card has now given up and I am definitely in the market for a new card with guaranteed TV-out and Linux compatibility.

IK

Aahh,well, as it happens, I took your advice and tried iout PCLinuxOS. It installed in about 15mins and then it just took a re-run of the Xorg config wizard to get TV-Out working jsut perfectly. I know have a perfectly (almost but that's linux) working linux install. net/email/Vids/TV/music/photo-view all work fine!

So thanks!