So I just installed slackware 12 and thought everything went ok. I rebooted and got to lilo, chose Linux, then it displayed a few lines of "...." and said something about loading linux (as usual). Then it goes to a black screen and just sat there. I'm guessing it's a problem with my display adapter or driver. It's possible that the computer was still doing things that I couldn't see. I waited about a minute to see if it would display anything but it didn't. My guess is that it's doing the slackware thing and waiting for someone to log in and startx. Only problem is that I can't tell because I can't see it.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm pretty familiar with slackware and linux in general - booting off the cd and mounting my root partition would not be a problem if I just knew what to do from there.

what graphics card do you have? I had the same problem with an Nvidia Geforce on my laptop after compiling my own kernel (until I got the config right).

ATI Radeon x800 PCIE

It's an incompatibility with the kernel framebuffer drivers.

Look, you can boot into your system using the Slackware CD (or DVD) or any other Linux distro live-cd, it doesn't matter. Then you have to chroot into your root (/) linux partition.

Now you will edit your lilo.conf to something like this:

See, you can add the line "vga = ask", so in every boot Lilo will ask you for which resolution do you want to use.
Considering that the problem is with it's framebuffer, you will select the standard resolution (no framebuffer option)

Now you type "lilo" in the shell and you should see something like that:
Alright, now just reboot your machine and select the non-framebuffer option for your booting. It might works.

Good, but do you still wants the framebuffer to works, right?

I'm going to copy you the lines in my kernel config file related to the framebuffer options:


My video card is also an ATI and it works. Maybe you're gonna need to recompile your kernel if you want the framebuffer to work.


I hope my explanation has solved your video problems.

I'm kind of a noob myself, but it's possible that a framebuffer is being used for the console, which can cause some problems depending on the video card. If you can boot it up using the CD, mount the root partition and edit /etc/lilo.conf, you may be able to boot normally (although without the cute little penguin). If you uncomment "vga = normal" and comment whatever other framebuffer is being used in /etc/lilo.conf it should be fine.

If you really want that little penguin you'll have to do some tweaking (try out different framebuffer settings and make sure the drivers for your video card are installed).

[edit]Looks like you beat me to the punch sparc86![/edit]

Ok, I just solved my visibility problem using the "vga = [option]" idea and now I know why my system was halting. This is what my screen reads:

Uncompressing Linux...

crc error

System Halted-


Fixed that error - had to do with my usb key most likely not getting along with my motherboard and/or linux.

Thanks for your help!

I am facing with same problem...

-I installed Slack 12.0.
+Got this black screen error.
-With livecd ,chmodded linux part ,Edited Lilo.conf and set vga = ask , typed lilo and it said:
"Added 2 partition
Wİndows
Linux"
Everything ok.
I reboot choose linux , it asks me console reso , i use default , the classic texts flow on screen... and i get BIG BLack SCREEN , no key is working... even numpad and ctrl alt del isnt working too...


What you suggest to me now ?

Have you really used the "normal" (default) resolution? To be sure about that, just change the "vga = ask" to "vga = normal".

yes i also tried that but i still have the error.
When i get that screen no keys works even numpad and ctrl alt del...

Anybody have an idea ?
+++++
I also tried booting from backtrack live cd, and then in command line i changed root to slackware partition , and typed "startx" , then a black screen came , after 5,6 sec i was returned into shell again saying startx failed to load with couple lines of errors like :

KDEd error : failed to communicate ...
and more..
The question is Do I have permission to open my slack GUI while i am on live cd ?Or this is a normal error ?

Okay I am very eager to make SLACK work on my laptop...

1.I runned BacktrackLiveCd.
2.I chroot'ed /mnt/sda6 (This is my Slack partition.)
3.I typed "startx" which should start my SLACK GUI.
4.I got this error message.
[img=http://img176.imagevenue.com/loc96/th_96656_DSC01526_122_96lo.JPG]

Edit : Last line of picture says : refcount is 2 , should be 1 , fixing.
edit : UP pls

come on , one slackguru probably knows this error source...

The problem is more likely the segfaults reported by startkde, possibly they come from kdepersonaliser. In any case see what is started by line 301. The FreeFontPath refcount one is a common X message and can be disregarded

Which variable on which file , should i add to make my Slack start without starting KDE ( like KdeStart = 0 )?

Well, Slack by default starts in runlevel 3, and it appears that you haven't changed this. To change the window manager used run xwmconfig.

But I would sort out the problem with the console display first, if you haven't already. I'm afraid I cant help you there I have always used vga = normal in LILO.

I think i have found the problem from slackbook.
My slack doesnt have the file etc/rc.d/rc.s which makes system initializition . Can smb upload it so i can put it in my directory ?