AussieJohn Posted November 1, 2003 Report Share Posted November 1, 2003 Hello all. I am trying to help out a young woman who is interested in trying out LINUX for the first time in the form of Mandrake 9.1. Although I have some reasonable success with many Mandrake Installs on my own computer (this is my fourth hardware build version)(8.0, 8.1, 9.0 and 9.1), I have not been able to get her computer running properly. During the install routine summary when I click on TEST I get an error message saying cannot determine monitor (or is it Screen.......... I am not sure which) layout. Yes, Plug-n-Play is disabled in the bios and everything works AOK in the WinXP OS on her first partition. Her Monitor is a COMPAQ Presario 1510 CPQ130E ( horiz: 31 - 50, vert: 50 - 100 ) and the Video Card is a TRIDENT BLADE 3DMVP4. I cannot find the Monitor in the COMPAQ list or the correct Video card in the Trident list.. Perhaps someone might know what the correct equivalents are in the two lists and also how to boot into the GUI using some generic formula. I tried using the settings that were detected (????) and set by Mandrake but it would not boot into a GUI ( selected KDE ). It would boot up to a command line requiring ID and then Password but when I entered startx, it would give a quick error message and proceed to freeze. Most combinations of drivers and settings I have tried produce the same results but I have finally got it to boot up to a GUI screen which is badly blurred, pixilated and seems like offset double imaged and therefore still totally unusable. java script:emoticon('') I have tried to reinstall and also to try the pretend upgrade routine but still get the same trouble. I am using the same GENUINE Mandrake 9.1 disk set (3) as I use for my own installs so the problem is not related to the installation software. java script:emoticon('') Hope someone can help me win another convert ( she is already basically a good convert and I don't want to disappoint her because she realises this is a hardware compatability problem and not a Mandrake prroblem. What a pity more macho males could not understand this basic point ) Cheers. John (69years young)java script:emoticon(':D') Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted November 1, 2003 Report Share Posted November 1, 2003 Have you tried running xf86config from the command line? If you can try using the basic VESA driver and a genaric monitor that matches her specs. That shoould get you closer to something usable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 2, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2003 Thank you Pzatch for that. I will give that a try tomorrow. Is this kind of problem really related with the monitor itself or is it related to the video card primarily ???. If it is really a crap video card I think I could convince her to replace it with a better one now. But if it is a crappy monitor then she is planning to change to an LCD monitor soon anyhow and this means she will still need a more modern video card which can handle LCD monitors. Thanks for your time and also thanks in advance for your next response. Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted November 2, 2003 Report Share Posted November 2, 2003 As with anything I can't guarntee this but I've never heard of a working monitor not working in linux if it runs in windose. It more than likely just the wrong driver for the vidio card. The Vesa driver is a very old genaric driver that about 95% or better of all vidio cards use to get a very basic color screen. After you find something that works you can play with it more to get better resolution and screen use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 3, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2003 Thanks Pzatch. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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