SimplyMEPIS 6.0 RC3 Video at 640x480 only

If there is no control in the Mepis configs to change your res - then its a live cd > hit F3 at Grub screen and choose res > reinstall xconfig...Seems a bit odd to default to 640x480 - surely 90% of people have monitors that can at least do 1024x768...best send a bug report detailing your hardware..

I just burned the rc3 disk and the md5 failed , i downloaded from Mepis . You might want to check that.

jim

I have done 3 downloads and got a bad md5sum on one. KGet was used for all downloads.

regards,
Bad Dog
SimplyMEPIS 6.0-rc-3 - KDE 3.5.3 - kernel 2.6.15-25

Yes... I usually keep it at 1024x768 (which is where virtually all distros, including SimplyMEPIS releases other than 6.0 RC2 and RC3 set it to.

But, it actually supports higher resolutions. lol

My vote is that they go back to the way 6.0 RC1 and earlier 3.x SimplyMEPIS releases handled it if they think someone using an Nvidia FX5200 (one of the most popular graphics cards around) would have a monitor attached to it with a maximum resolution of 640x480).

Or, at least let users change it from the Live CD without jumping through hoops.

I've already had to reinstall 6.0 RC1 because RC2 wouldn't work (I couldn't even set the resolution after selecting a specific monitor because the package with the info was missing and I didn't realixe I could get it via a note posted about it until after I went back to RC1).

So, I'm not going to risk trying to install RC3, just to have the same problems I did with RC2 again if I can't make it work from menus from the RC3 Live CD before installing it. lol

Jim C.

Just do as someone already suggested. When you fire up the CD, press F3 to pick the correct resolution. Then go ahead and instsll.

If you already installed, boot the Mepis CD, press F3 in the boot menu, pick resolution, boot into KDE. click install me and choose 're-install X config'.

There really is no problem nor a bug here, it's just a preliminary step required on many PCs. My laptop supports 1600x1200, but boots into 1024x768 from the CD if I don't set it manually. With the correct resolution set, it installs perfectly,

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Yeah Bad Dog further checks indicate a bad download! Well *(*^%$^%$%%#@ it i guess i'll sit this one out & wait for final . My isp went down over the week end , went through hell getting and setting everything up again with new passwords etc because of that . Now i dont know if my dsl is screwing up router modem or rig ??? AT&T just got in the deal so i dont know whats up . Server is overloaded any way so i'll just back off and punt!

jim

Live cd works fine at 1280x1024, after install too.
But after installation of nvidia drivers I get stuck at 1024x768
No way to change it, I tried mepis config and nvidia config from command line and still the same.
I can see the nv boot splash (green/white) but it is also a little bit too big
Tried also to edit xorg.conf with no luck
My card is geforce 6800xt
It also does not find the pnp monitor.
It is wierd because same hardware works 100% with pclos

ps. Not related:
Also my mic is always on (unable to mute it from kmix)

Could be this issue, Jim: http://www.mepis.org/node/10373.

That was the issue with 6.0 RC2 (as I found out the hard way after overwriting RC1 with RC2, before the note that you could download the missing package, resulting in me needing reinstall RC1 because I couldn't set the monitor resolution correctly in RC2).

I'd already gone back to RC1 before that was posted.

I don't know if it's fixed in RC3 or not. But, since the Live CD doesn't let me pick my monitor and comes up with a max resolution of 640x480 available in the menus, I'm not going to install RC3 just to find out whether or not it's broken, too.

The appeal of SimplyMEPIS is that it "just works". So, why change the way it looks at monitors, if it wasn't broken in previous versions?

SimplyMEPIS 6.0 RC2 and RC3 are the *only* Linux distros I've ever tested that came up in 640x480 without an easy way to change it.

Sorry if I sound negative, but I just don't understand what happend here. If it was working before, why try to do it differently now when 6.0 RC1 and all previous SimplyMEPIS versions that I've tried in the past couple of years worked fine)?

"If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it" (especially after multiple betas and an Release Candidate that worked).

Jim C.

Really dont know what to think now. I had the cd burnt allready so i went ahead and installed it on one test machine , MSI-K7T266pro2A mit 1800athlon & everything works fine so far even kooka, that i had problems with before.
There arent too many distros that can do that people! Im thinking thats pretty kool even the bad ones work with Mepis! Yess im a happy camper if it works on that one it should be excellent on the rest . Good thing too i 86ed the download. Looks like i got a bit hasty there BUT the system said it wasnt a good file????

jim

Same problem on both rc2 and rc3 and never before: live cd boots only when the lowest possible resolution is selected (in any other case I get "video mode not supported" -message). So there's actually no way to really choose it... Installation goes OK (despite the resolution) and drivers can be installed. Desired res can be reached by editing xorg.conf. Checksum OK.

I'm running on Asrock k8nf4g-sata2 (integrated NVIDIA 6100) and Hyundai ImageQuest L70s TFT.

As I said, I can fix those things after installation, but the first impression to someone may be a little odd.

FWIW, Jim, hwdata isn't broken in RC3; I can set a monitor with no problems, while I couldn't in RC2 until I installed hwdata.

Jimm C. im curious did mepis-auto get installed on your rig?

jim

I don't even know ahat mepis-auto is. lol

I did not install RC3, since my monitor was set at 640x480 running from the live CD and I couldn't change it under the live CD menus. Maybe it would work if I actually installed it. But, I'll just wait until the next RC or Final to try another one.

Jim C.

have you tried with the boot option xdrvr=vesa and then choosing the correct resolution from the boot menu when you press F3?

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Ok -- I tried that this morning and it does work (not if you select the vesa option though). IF you select the first (default) boot choice and choose the resolution, it does come up in 1024x768 like it should.

I'm not sure I want to try installing it yet. I had to use dhclient to get my network card started each time with RC1.

It's a Belkin Wireless G USB adapter and it shows up as rausb0 if you use iwconfig to see it (recognized fine). But, I can't select rausb0 in any of the network setup screens to get it started automatically in RC1. It's using the rt2570 driver. It looks like some rt2500 tools were added to rc3 (perhaps to try and get around that problem). But, they won't work with the rt2570.

Jim C.

fair enough, I don't know anything about the belkin, so cannot help you out there. Could ndiswrapper help out here??

Anyway, glad the video thingy got solved, I guess if you look in the HELP section of the boot menu, it says that autodetect may not always work, and that you can set the resolution manually at boot time...

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Well, every previous version of SimplyMEPIS I've tried set my resolution to 1024x768 by default (6.0 RC1, 3.4.2 and RCs. 3.3.x, etc.). Ditto for other Linux distros. I can't remember the last time a distro except for SimplyMEPIS 6.0 RC2 and RC3 set my monitor to 640x480. I'm not sure that's ever happened before, and I've tried a lot of distros. lol

Only 6.0 RC2 and RC3 don't set it correctly. So, the changes made beginning with RC2 are having a negative impact from my perspective.

As for the Network Card, the driver is there, and the system sees the card. It's using the RT2570 driver. I just don't see a way to specify this card in any of the setup screens. So, I have to use dhclient each time I start to get an IP Address for it (you don't have an rausb0 choice in any of the screens). Otherwise, it works fine (nothing else special needed).

I've also got a Netgear Card that I can use. I do need ndiswrapper for that one. But, since it shows up as wlan0, I can make it start automatically. But, I prefer the Belkin USB adapter (I get a better signal with it).

I overworte my SimplyMEPI 6.0 RC1 configuration with Kanotix 2006-easter-rc4, and I'm not sure I want to overwrite it with SimplyMEPIS 6.0 RC3 yet, since it seems to be running ok after I switched to an UP kernel with it.

I'll probably wait unti the next SimplyMEPIS 6.0 RC (or the final) before I try a full install again to see if I can sort out any remaining issues I have with it.

Jim C.

Yeah, the autodetect was introduced in RC2... dunno really, I hear mixed stories about it. It did not detect my laptop's screen resolution correctly, nor that of a friend's laptop. I'm gonna try it on the desktop... But you always have the F3 option, of course...

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Yes, F3 does work. I should have tried it earlier (although, I've never had to before with any previous distros).

But, first impressions were bad when I saw a 640 x 480 screen and there isn't a way to change it in any of the menus you have available running under the Live CD. I figured that it was related to the missing package in RC2 (but, apparently not, since RC2 and RC3 have the same problem).

I wouldn't have introduced a change that drastic after Multiple Alphas, Betas and a Release Candidate.

I can imagine they've got their reasons. But, call it an Alpha again if you do something that has the potential to break the distro for some users. IMO, a new RC should be for bug fixes, not for new features impacting something as important as monitor settings.

On a side note, I think I've got a fonts problem figured out that's prevented me from moving from Windows XP to Linux as my primary distro. I've got my fonts working perfectly now under Kanotix. So, I'll see if I can duplicate what I've done in SimplyMEPIS 6.0 after it goes final and I try another full install. There is hope yet that I might be able to eventually get away from using XP.

Jim C.

As I said, yes there's always F3 option, but it works only if I choose the lowest resolution. And THAT'S weird... That's really the only way to boot live. Maybe there's some parameters, but if this would be the first time I try Mepis, I guess I would drop it (- which I surely will not do.) AutoRes brought this to me.

I'm afraid to try it on my wife's laptop (and she's been running SimplyMEPIS for a long time). She's running one of the 3.4.x Release Candidates now (I never upgraded to the final since the Release Candidate is working fine on it).

She was running an earlier SimplyMEPIS release before that, and they only reason I upgraded her was becaue of a new printer we couldn't get working. If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

I'll wait until I feel comfortable with 6.0 on my PC before trying it on anyone elses. Right now, I'm definitely not comfortable with the way it's handling monitor settings.

My vote is that they yank this new auto resolution stuff and do it the same way 6.0 RC1 and previous 3.x SimplyMEPIS distros handlled it (since I've never personally seen any problems with that part, and I've installed SimplyMEPIS it on friends and relatives PCs before). SimplyMEPIS is the only Linux distro I feel comfortable doing that with (I'm a Linux novice). But, I don't feel comfortable with 6.0 RC2 or RC3.