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I have been unable to get either UBUNTU or SUSE to have a display that isn't covered with vertical streaks, and smears when a window is moved. I can run versions of Linux that use Xvesa with no problem on the same computer and monitor. Several people have tried to help and have reinstalled UBUNTU and SUSE both several times, tried changing the refresh rate but no luck.
Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux run great, just wanted access to more applications than they have available.
Well, I advise you to get a distribution based on either Ubuntu or SuSE (depends which you want to fix first), boot it and take a look at the Xorg.conf it's using, copy it somewhere and use it for your 'hard drive install'. It could fix your trouble. The /var/log/X* logs might help you troubleshoot it as well. You could also try to 'startx' and see what happens from a console.
Regarding vesa driver and not sis - I see that UBUNTU did recognize the sis 530 driver, which I thought was a good thing. So how do I ges UBUNTU to recognize vesa ? I tried option F4 at boot-up and selected vga which I thought would equate to vesa but didn't see any difference.
In PUPPY LINUX and DAMN SMALL LINUX I have used Xvesa with 1024 x 760 and the display looks great, no resolution problem or streaks there!
Almost wonder if there is some kind of IRQ conflict as notice "noise" in the display when the hard drive is active, something that hasn't happened with Xvesa.
Thanks to all for trying to help but looks like I may have one of those unsolveable problems!
Well, I advise you to get a distribution based on either Ubuntu or SuSE (depends which you want to fix first), boot it and take a look at the Xorg.conf it's using, copy it somewhere and use it for your 'hard drive install'.
The problem with that is that "only some specific monitors (like some Dell) " are known to fail autodetection in that specific way on Ubuntu/Suse.
W6LQR, for using vesa, simply select it from settings and also enable framebuffer ... at least
I've had the same problem with two different monitors, and don't have the problem with PUPPY LINUX eather using Xvesa or Xorg, guess "PUPPY" is smarter!
By the way that's in 1024 x 768 so I'm not talking about low resolution either.
So, what distro's support Xvesa and have good package management ??
Jerry, I was having a similar problem until a few minutes ago. My graphics card wouldn't support xorg, so after everything loaded up, I got nothing, a blank screen, not even a mouse or anything.
I did a bunch of searching and found a site that describes a way to get ubuntu 8.04 to run in xvesa, and INSTALL in xvesa. It works for me, I just did it.
"First, select the boot option from your BIOS Screen to boot form your desired device.
1.
Insert the LiveCD and get to the menu with the splash screen.
2.
Choose “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer” and click f6.
3.
Clicking F6 will bring up the Boot Options.
4.
Add the word xforcevesa to the end of the line and hit enter to start the LiveCD boot process.
5.
Install Ubuntu to your preferences.
"
the "xforcevesa" is the key word
the site was designed for a laptop, but I just did it on the new PC I built that has an older, less powerful graphics card.
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