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linux video=vga16:off
(The kernel image, followed by the boot parameters.)
You can now boot up okay, but you’ll need to be wary of this when you’re
glibly ‘ENTER’ing through menus later in the install — when you’re asked if
you want to append anything to the kernel image for the boot loader, you need
to type that line (video=vga16:off) again. If you don’t, the screen will get
split again.
You can fix a split screen if you already have an installed system by editing
your /etc/lilo.conf. In your linux stanza, just put append="video=vga16:off"
(this is what would have happened if you’d specified it in the base system config-
uration). Then run lilo — your changes won’t take effect until you do. (This
will also tell you if you’ve screwed it up somehow — it’s good to double-check.)
1.2 Xserver-XFree86 Configuration
Even after I had the base system installed and happy, I couldn’t get X working
as easily as I had in the past (which was basically it coming up upon rebooting
after the base installation). I must have configured something wrong, because
instead of starting X as usual, the screen flashed a couple times, and then kicked
me back to a console.
The way to reconfigure the X-server is by using dpkg (what else?). Do:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
to reconfigure X. It’s best just to change one parameter at a time, so you can
see what’s working and what’s not.
1.2.1 Which Video Card
Even though I had an ATI card, choosing ati in the video card section did not
work — I had to choose r128. Strangely enough, this is not an option during the
base install! I have no idea why this is. So if you’re using the same image, you
will need to reconfigure the X-server no matter what if you need r128 support.
When you reconfigure (as root, of course), choose r128. Then restart X with
a ‘/etc/init.d/xdm restart‘.
Having r128 as your video card might make X come up, but unless you’ve
magically specified everything else correctly (and the important parameters —
at least the ones I had trouble with — are the horizontal and vertical refresh
rates, and the screen size), it may be too small (which I never saw), distorted
(which I saw a lot), or even turn white and freeze the entire computer (which I
also saw a lot).
To prevent having to do a hard reboot (because when X crashes into the
mysterious white screen of death, nothing — not even the three-finger salute
— can send the machine the signals it needs to cleanly shut down), have your
fingers ready over the CTRL+ALT+F1 keys to take you back to your console
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