Two video questions
Posts: 32
I'm setting up a friend's Dell with SimplyMEPIS 6 and have run into one minor video-related problem and one not-so-minor one.
The minor one is that, at boot, just after the stage 2 GRUB menu has disappeared and text has begun to appear in the upper left corner of the screen, an error message stating that an invalid video mode has been selected appears and a 30 second pause is initiated wherein one can select a different mode.
I'm guessing this is a Xorg or VESA message, since the later load of X goes fine and the display seems flawless once the GUI is loaded. The problem is the persistent 30 second delay and the fact that the graphical load screen won't display; everything proceeds in the verbose mode. Can anyone tell me where Xorg/VESA is getting the mode parameters? I can't seem to find anything in xorg.conf that seems relevant. Or if it isn't Xorg/VESA, where the problem lies? It would appear, from what I can deduce, an incorrect octal code is being fed to Xorg/VESA, or whatever is managing the screen at that point.
The second and more troubling problem involves kdeaccessibility and the choice of a High-Contrast Big desktop theme. Selecting this theme causes some KDE application windows to run off the screen to the bottom right, without scroll bars. Additionally, some buttons have a line through their text and seem not to function. My friend's wife is visually impaired and it would really help to get this working for her. Any clues would be appreciated.
Thanks, Jon
Posts: 32
It will be a few days before I can get to my friend's to try your suggestions. I appreciate the tips and will try them as soon as I can. I did know about the effect of resolution settings on character size, but one begins to lose anti-aliasing effects if one gets carried away.
For what it's worth, the visually impaired individual (my friend's wife, not mine) didn't like kmagnify much (I did know about it) and prefers the old-fashioned, handheld, glass magnifier. Honestly, I think I see why. Some things are just better in analog. Kmagnify could give one vertigo pretty easily.
Analog
Posts: 5513
Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I've fiddled with Kmagnify and a couple other things, but the fact remains that one has only so much desktop. So to use one part to magnify the other can get confusing (and nauseating), especially if one looses the cursor! 
Jon
Update
Posts: 32
Just a quick FYI: The monitor is a Dell M991 CRT, but the user plans to replace it this weekend, so I'm holding off on further ministrations. I did try 'vga=normal' and it eliminated the wait period, but the graphic load screen still doesn't appear.
The graphics chipset is a pretty generic Intel 82865G controller. The box itself is a Dell Dimension DIM 4600.
The issue with the application window extending beyond the screen's viewable area only seems to apply to the window opened by the Theme Manager to allow modifications (though it may apply to other system configuration screens I haven't tried). Unfortunately, moving the mouse pointer has no effect; the portions of the window stay out of reach. Fortunately, the user won't be making modifications and I know the keystrokes to initiate the necessary commands without seeing the options.
First Problem First
Posts: 5513
Hey Rambo Tribble, haven't seen you in these parts for a while!
Exactly which Dell are you working on? It is not uncommon to have that startup error message, just after grub (and it predates xorg). When you are first starting the system and grub is showing, there's an input field towards the bottom of the screen. First, to stop the 15-second timer, press the left-arrow key. That will also take the cursor over a character in the input field. It ends in "vga=791". Change that to "vga=normal" (no quotes). That will produce a kinda typical 80-ish characters-per-line screen. If you like slightly smaller text, you might have luck with "vga=773". That is the setting I used on my old Dell laptop.
See if that gets you through the first part.
For the second part, choose the F3 button on startup and choose the exact video size that you want to use. This may or may not work.
I have only worked a little with the accessibility issues but there may be a few ways to tackle the problem. Does your wife need the high-contrast or just bigger display? It is possible to configure xorg.conf so that, say, the normal desktop size is 1024x768, but you can also provide 800x600. When you switch to the lower resolution on a high resolution screen the screen gets bigger! So then you can scroll around the desktop. You don't need scroll bars; as you move the mouse cursor to a border the desktop itself moves.
Also, there's a magnifier, but I haven't played with it for a bit, so I can't remember where it is (possbily kmagnify?)
Let me know what you find out and I'll see if I can help more
Jon