Help! Newbie working on a Compaq LTE 5250 laptop. (Yes, it's antique. Pentium 133, 32MB, upgraded 10GB hard drive, floppy - no CD, etc.)

I've got the laptop up and running on Red Hat 9.0 (Shrike). With no CD, I booted from a floppy and installed via a Xircom PCMCIA network card.

I have been completely unsuccessful in configuring the video card to work with X (or any GUI like KDE). The machine boots, but fails to go graphical. It gives me errors that cannot be read, and eventually dumps me back out to a text-mode login screen.

I've done some research on the laptop, and it has a Cirrus Logic GD754x graphics controller, which is appropriately probed during install. There is 1MB of onboard video memory. According to the Compaq website, it should be able to run 800x600 at 16-bit color. (I need better than 8-bit, as the ultimate goal is to turn this into a digital photo frame.)

During the install and after, the machine seems to run in 640x480 only, as there is about a 1-inch band around all sides of the LCD screen. I haven't tried anything with an external monitor, as that is not how I will ever use this system -- it wouldn't help me.

I've been logging in using text mode, as root, and tinkering with the XF86Config file. I've tried changing the resolution (800x600, 640x480) and different color levels (8, 12, 16-bit). 8-bit works, but even that isn't all displayed properly in the 640x480 mode -- there's not enough real estate on the screen, if that makes sense. I'd take 640x480 if it could be stretched all the way across the LCD, but 800x600 (native) would obviously be an improvement.

I recognize this is pretty broad, but can anyone please help?!? I've been at it for 10 long nights myself! Many thanks....

TRY connecting a monitor to it to see if it does attempt to init the screen -- you might see the error messages. I have personally had a real hard time with RH9 and Cirrus Logic cards, as I have lots of compaqs around...

I assume the installation screens are clear and pretty?
If so, try and run it at 640x480x256<8bit>, to see if you get anything...

Compaq's web site says all sorts of great things, but that's using THEIR drivers, and we all know that in the linux world, some things just aren't that simple. :P

You should use as the X server

Cirrus Logic GD754x (laptop) ........................... XF86_SVGA

here's a good place to look -- seems like it might hit the nail on the head..

http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/cirrus.html

The machine doesn't have enough RAM to run a graphical install, so that was all done in text mode. Therefore, I think the answer to your question about pretty install screens is "no."

I'll try connecting an external monitor today and see if I can get any kind of better feedback there, though I'm still going to require the LCD to suit my ultimate purpose.

Thanks for the link; I'll check that out. There are reports of people that got this machine to work in 800x600x16bit, but I haven't joined their ranks quite yet. Stay posted - and any other suggestions also appreciated!!!

What stumps me is i have a machine with 1 mb of video ram and it works fine, not a laptop tho. I dunno, sometimes redhat doesn't get along with some hardware.

I got some (meaningful?) error messages to spit out, and thought I'd post those in case they are helpful to someone more knowledgable than me. Contained between the lines below...

------------------------

(EE) VGA(0): Virtual height (0) is too small for the hardware (min 1)
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

----------------------------------

Is that any help?

I could try to post my entire XF86Config file, but without the ability to copy/paste it in, I'd have to type the whole thing. Is it sufficiently helpful/necessary that I should do that?

Thanks again for the tips!