From: barspi@wam.umd.edu (Barzilai Spinak) Subject: Video mode (and other things) question Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 01:59:40 GMT
I "ftped" the boot/root combo 0.98 from tsx-11 the other day. It loads well
and everything but there's an annoying problem: I get 40x25 video mode.
I have read the FAQ (BTW, the TeX version looks very nice!) and didn't find an
answer. First I must say that I could be called a "unix toddler" (first experiences last semester in college) and a PC/DOS "mature adult".
I say this to make it easier for you to answer. My machine (well, my father's)
is like this: Brand X 386-33
AMI BIOS (Dec. 1991)
"vanilla" VGA. a little old (>2 years old) OAK chipset, I think.
Seagate 4096 (~80MB) ST506 controller
4 MB RAM
Brand X mouse MS-compatible in COM2
Well, I already said the problem. I don't know how to solve it. This is my
first attempt ever to install a unix system and I don't know very much. I think
this could be a good way to learn. I even tried something that I saw in an
earlier post by Marco Valentini (valentm@ghost.dsi.unimi.it) on Jan. 22.
He said that to start Linux in NORMAL_VGA one has to change 2 bytes at offset
506 & 507 (decimal) at Cyl. 0 Side 0 Sect. 1 on the boot disk. He said to change them to 0xFD and 0xFF. This bytes seem to be a little after the "Loading..."
message. I get this message in 80 columns but it switches to 40 after that.
I to change thos bytes and also tried with other numbers but
nothing happens, I still get 40x25. It looks so terrible that I don't even want to look at the screen. HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!!!
Other questions:
1) When I get the first screen (already in 40 cols) I get some messages about
ttys (serial ports?) like seem to be OK, then it says that it doesn't find
a mouse of any kind although I have one (look above). I don't think I need a mouse yet but I'm just telling this so you all know.
2) I didn't see version .99 as the boot/root combo. I have seen many files with the numbers "99" in it but they are patch files, like pl3, pl4, etc.
I don't know how to use them. Is there a complete version >=0.99 of the combo somewhere instead of the patches?
That's all folks!
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| o ____ / _____/ / Barzilai Spinak o |
| / / / \ barspi@wam.umd.edu |
| _____ / _____ / / barspi@eng.umd.edu |
| / / / \ ..... |
| _________/ ___/ _______/ ___/ / (-O-O-) |
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