Jim said:
I didn't think you could have VGA and DVI connected at the same time.
I would assume the graphics card would only use one--probably the
first one it felt a monitor was connected to it. But, I tried
connecting both and I got the same symptom--no video and unable to
tell if it booted.
NEW INFO: I realized I have an ethernet card in that PC. I connected
it my hub and tried to ping the PC after waiting long enough for Linux
to boot. I couldn't, so it looks like Linux isn't booting. I just
checked /var/log/messages and sure enough there's about 15 minutes
between shutdown and startup. That deadtime is probably when I tried
to boot via DVI. So, it's hardware, the BIOS or grub. Any ideas? Is
there any way to get grub to log something to the hard drive?
Thanks much,
Jim
I think you're right. The Geforce256 isn't a dual head GPU. In the multi-monitor
configurations here, it looks like they may only be using one monitor with
the card.
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimo...OS=All&Use=Both&System=&SearchType=SearchCard
In this review article on the LeadTek version of the card,
there is a "selector" box for output options. I gather that
is how you go about selecting the output device (i.e. not dual
head, just 1-of-N connectors). The LeadTek has VGA (the default)
plus S-Video. The S-Video is created by a separate chip, translating
some digital interface on the GPU, to S-Video. Your card with
DVI, is using the "flat panel option", and there would be
an external chip to convert to TMDS (a TMDS transmitter of
some sort). TMDS is the signaling method used on DVI.
The "flat panel option" has a limit of 1600x1200 for resolution.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/print/leadtek-geforce256ddr.html
Perhaps what you need, to add to your Linux, is a tainted MVidia
driver, assuming one can be found that supports Geforce256. Like
all drivers these days, it's hard to find something that supports
them all. Nvidia and ATI, both drop support for older hardware,
in their latest drivers, so seem to be in no mood to embrace the
Linux notion of supporting old hardware. If Nvidia and ATI don't support
it, then you use the default driver that comes with the OS.
The potential difference might be, that the Nvidia driver would
know about the selection function, whereas the default driver
might just use the "primary" connector.
So somehow, you need the equivalent of that LeadTek custom display
control panel, with its option to select an alternate connector
on the faceplate.
Now, a while back, someone had a video card problem, and I tried to
investigate what it would take, to set up a good test environment for
such a purpose. I eventually found a distro (several years old), where
there was a "single button" in the interface of the distro, to install
the tainted Nvidia or ATI driver. The purpose of doing so, was to get
as much acceleration from the video card as possible. The repository
for that particular distro was shut down, so you couldn't install
any software from the repository. I was able to use "glxgears" and
note it was working faster, but I decided that the method I was pursuing,
was too expensive time-wise, for anyone to care about it. Every
time I've needed to modify anything involving graphics in Linux,
it takes bags and bags of time.
*******
I can barely get grub to behave at the best of times. I wouldn't
be the right guy to ask about logging from grub
I like some of my older Knoppix CDs for testing, because the
boot sequence is written to the screen. No covering graphics to
hide the text output.
I'd either:
1) Test with LiveCD discs. Preferably, something verbose, that leaves
lots of text on the screen. My favorite would be Knoppix 5.3.1 DVD
version (but that won't boot on a CD drive), while there is a remaster
done by some people in Japan, that fits 5.3.1 on a CD. On occasion, I've
used that Knoppix DVD for testing overclocked systems, and you can
watch the boot sequence crash, if the thing is really unstable. Or
watch icons disappear from the desktop, seconds after the system has
booted.
2) Boot and bring up to level 2. On Knoppis, that would be
something like "knoppix 2" and that puts you in text mode.
That would be handy, if you needed to edit the XWindows configuration
file by hand. It would also be a test of whether booting part way,
and not altering the graphics operations, works any better.
I thought your boot log was effectively "dmesg", but I don't know
at what point it is flushed. I just looked at the /var/log/dmesg file
on my Ubuntu virtual machine, and that looks to contain the boot
messages from the last bootup. There is an executable "dmesg" that
also echoes the contents of that file to the screen.
Paul
