I am trying to run Puppy on an old HP Pavilion 4404 desktop (256MB RAM) which has a Sis5597 chipset. I cannot get X to display correctly. Depending on the vga option selected, I get nothing (Xvesa), vertical green stripes of different heights, pointilist horizontal bands, or a re-boot (various Xorg/TestX options).
I had the same problem with Damn Small Linux but could get it working by setting the colour bit size to 4 - not an option for Puppy as far as I could find. At 8 bits or more, neither small linuxes work. At 4 bits, the display is adequate with DSL but comparing the two systems on our other computers, Puppy has the better look-&-feel. So I'd like to get Puppy set up if possible.
Ubuntu runs on the old HP computer, but slowly, as does Windows 98SE.
Thanks for any advice.
DavidS.
Sis5597 chipset in old HP 4404 Pavilion - video problem
re-Sis5597 chipset in old HP 4404 Pavilion - video problem
Slide another video card in a PCI slot and use it instead.
I hope this helps.
I hope this helps.
If at first you don't succeed try try again!
Re: re-Sis5597 chipset in old HP 4404 Pavilion - video probl
Thanks for that idea, but the two PCI slots are filled with 2 Netgear network cards. My next problem no doubt will be to get these working with Puppy, particularly the Netgear WG311v3 - works well with ndiswrapper with Ubuntu.ezeze5000 wrote:Slide another video card in a PCI slot and use it instead.
I hope this helps.
This old HP came with "on-board" SIS graphics. Can I ask that, as Ubuntu runs with excellent graphics on another partition on this same machine, can I find and adapt the driver Ubuntu is using, to also run with Puppy? Or modify the appropriate Puppy or Xorg config file to match Ubuntu's set-up?
David S.
Re: re-Sis5597 chipset in old HP 4404 Pavilion - video
Do you really need 2 network cards?
If at first you don't succeed try try again!
G'day Barry,
I am using Puppy_2.12_seamonkey_iso.
In looking through the forum sections for other similar problems, there seem to be quite a few with old lap-tops having what to me look like very similar Xorg config difficulties.
I was going to try some of the solutions posed there, and also try a bare-bones puppy iso. I can add sea-monkey later - I assume the version I added into Ubuntu Dapper on the same machine will install with puppy?
Anyway, thanks for any help with the X set-up.
DavidS.
I am using Puppy_2.12_seamonkey_iso.
In looking through the forum sections for other similar problems, there seem to be quite a few with old lap-tops having what to me look like very similar Xorg config difficulties.
I was going to try some of the solutions posed there, and also try a bare-bones puppy iso. I can add sea-monkey later - I assume the version I added into Ubuntu Dapper on the same machine will install with puppy?
Anyway, thanks for any help with the X set-up.
DavidS.
you could try to copy /etc/X11/xorg.conf from Ubuntu to Puppy.
But this just would make sense, if you download too zdrv_212.sfs , as it should include the SIS-driver.
http://puptrix.org/isos/Puppylinux-official/2.12/
Maybe with that addon, you don't even need to copy the xorg.conf.
Just the driver might be sufficient, maybe your SIS-chip simply has no good Vesa-support, that is standard in the "smaller" version of Puppy 2.12.
Mark
But this just would make sense, if you download too zdrv_212.sfs , as it should include the SIS-driver.
http://puptrix.org/isos/Puppylinux-official/2.12/
Maybe with that addon, you don't even need to copy the xorg.conf.
Just the driver might be sufficient, maybe your SIS-chip simply has no good Vesa-support, that is standard in the "smaller" version of Puppy 2.12.
Mark
Vast majority of vid chipset OEMs - have relied on use of VESA ISO standards - for MANY years.
The prime reason why -most distributions ship with it .
Further - Xorg may be configured for GUI use - without implementing proprietary driver use !
Frame buffer mode - Vesa . "nv" there are MORE using only \"generic" driver interface.
.
There seems to be MUCH confusion/- mis-information in Puppy forums -
over E.G > vid & printing configurations... without use of pre-supplied "wizards" !
The prime reason why -most distributions ship with it .
Further - Xorg may be configured for GUI use - without implementing proprietary driver use !
Frame buffer mode - Vesa . "nv" there are MORE using only \"generic" driver interface.
.
There seems to be MUCH confusion/- mis-information in Puppy forums -
over E.G > vid & printing configurations... without use of pre-supplied "wizards" !
G’day again.
Over the week-end I tried Live Puppy CDs of bare-bones and 2.12-zdrv iso. Neither would run past trying to start X on my old HP Pavilion desktop, but both Live-CDs ran on newer computers (desktop & laptops). Choosing Vesa caused a black/blank screen on the HP with both.
I have looked at the xorg.conf file from Ubuntu Dapper which works perfectly graphically on this old HP computer.
Ubuntu's xorg.conf identifies:
the "device" as "Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) 5597 [SiS5582]".
the "driver" is "sis"
the BusID is "PCI:0:19:0".
The xorg.conf file gives details for my HP Pavilion M50 monitor –
Option "DPMS",
HorizSync 30-54,
VertRefresh 50-100.
I have found a spare non-HP/made-this-century-in-Korea monitor, so not quite as old as my HP M50, to see if that might work.
How do I change the video driver used by/for X, to see if that's where my problem lies, when I cannot get any Live CD to run, nor run Puppy after installing the basic Puppy files (listed elsewhere on the forum) to a hard drive partition?
Thanks for any advice or ideas.
Over the week-end I tried Live Puppy CDs of bare-bones and 2.12-zdrv iso. Neither would run past trying to start X on my old HP Pavilion desktop, but both Live-CDs ran on newer computers (desktop & laptops). Choosing Vesa caused a black/blank screen on the HP with both.
I have looked at the xorg.conf file from Ubuntu Dapper which works perfectly graphically on this old HP computer.
Ubuntu's xorg.conf identifies:
the "device" as "Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) 5597 [SiS5582]".
the "driver" is "sis"
the BusID is "PCI:0:19:0".
The xorg.conf file gives details for my HP Pavilion M50 monitor –
Option "DPMS",
HorizSync 30-54,
VertRefresh 50-100.
I have found a spare non-HP/made-this-century-in-Korea monitor, so not quite as old as my HP M50, to see if that might work.
How do I change the video driver used by/for X, to see if that's where my problem lies, when I cannot get any Live CD to run, nor run Puppy after installing the basic Puppy files (listed elsewhere on the forum) to a hard drive partition?
Thanks for any advice or ideas.
Another week-end at Gunn & Fames.
Began Friday evening with many attempts to run the 2.12 zdrv Live CD on my old HP desk-top with the SiS 5597 chipset, trying all sorts of boot instructions added to "puppy".
Q1. Is there a list of all possible commands of the pfix type somewhere?
My attempts resulted in either, after a few green "dones", the BSOD (black, not blue, and with no words of excuse/blame), or if I got as far as the X will now run line, a # or a black screen with the white cursor top left which could occasionally respond to Ctrl-Alt-F2 or Backspace, for me to try xorgwizard or xwin until I ended up at BlackSOD again.
But lo and behold, WPB (way past bedtime) Friday, I suddenly had a flickering Puppy orange text box which then gave on to the blue Puppy 2.12 desktop, again with a bad case of the flickers especially if the mouse moved or there was keyboard input or the hard drive was active. Not quite the fine and stable Ubuntu display but enough to use the Puppy Universal Installer to put Puppy into a partition on my Linux hard-drive. And despite the flicker, Puppy ran its applications as fast as I'd hoped, compared to Ubuntu & W98SE. No, I can't remember precisely what commands I had used and in what order to get there. This was WPB.
Alas, the sad reality of Saturday morning - in fact all week-end - saw no booting past the X set-up for either LiveCD or installed Puppies. At least I could at last see what the installed Puppy xorg.conf file was and compare this with Ubuntu. Both called up the "sis" driver that the old HP chipset appears to require for X.
Strangely, in attempting to get the installed Puppy to run, the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file often got corrupted, the latter part being deleted. This latter part included the Driver specification which probably did not help. Copying a file xorg.conf.new I found in a nearby directory (and seemed very much like Ubuntu's working xorg.conf), in place of the corruptable/corrupted xorg.cnf did no better at getting X to open/run with Puppy.
One difference I see between Ubuntu's working xorg.conf and Puppy's misbehaving xorg.conf file is under Section "Screen", Ubuntu has tables of "modes" (display resolutions such as "1024x768" etc) where Puppy has "Viewports" which are all zeros for the various colour depth values. Is this something to adjust?
In the Section "Server Layout", the Puppy entry is:
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Is this as it should be? Lots of nothings are what I'm seeing on my monitor so I wonder if they're part of my problem?
Oh, and I sometimes get a warning that GtK cannot open the display before I have to press the not-so-magic on/off button
Any advice or things to try, thankfully received.
DavidS.
Began Friday evening with many attempts to run the 2.12 zdrv Live CD on my old HP desk-top with the SiS 5597 chipset, trying all sorts of boot instructions added to "puppy".
Q1. Is there a list of all possible commands of the pfix type somewhere?
My attempts resulted in either, after a few green "dones", the BSOD (black, not blue, and with no words of excuse/blame), or if I got as far as the X will now run line, a # or a black screen with the white cursor top left which could occasionally respond to Ctrl-Alt-F2 or Backspace, for me to try xorgwizard or xwin until I ended up at BlackSOD again.
But lo and behold, WPB (way past bedtime) Friday, I suddenly had a flickering Puppy orange text box which then gave on to the blue Puppy 2.12 desktop, again with a bad case of the flickers especially if the mouse moved or there was keyboard input or the hard drive was active. Not quite the fine and stable Ubuntu display but enough to use the Puppy Universal Installer to put Puppy into a partition on my Linux hard-drive. And despite the flicker, Puppy ran its applications as fast as I'd hoped, compared to Ubuntu & W98SE. No, I can't remember precisely what commands I had used and in what order to get there. This was WPB.
Alas, the sad reality of Saturday morning - in fact all week-end - saw no booting past the X set-up for either LiveCD or installed Puppies. At least I could at last see what the installed Puppy xorg.conf file was and compare this with Ubuntu. Both called up the "sis" driver that the old HP chipset appears to require for X.
Strangely, in attempting to get the installed Puppy to run, the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file often got corrupted, the latter part being deleted. This latter part included the Driver specification which probably did not help. Copying a file xorg.conf.new I found in a nearby directory (and seemed very much like Ubuntu's working xorg.conf), in place of the corruptable/corrupted xorg.cnf did no better at getting X to open/run with Puppy.
One difference I see between Ubuntu's working xorg.conf and Puppy's misbehaving xorg.conf file is under Section "Screen", Ubuntu has tables of "modes" (display resolutions such as "1024x768" etc) where Puppy has "Viewports" which are all zeros for the various colour depth values. Is this something to adjust?
In the Section "Server Layout", the Puppy entry is:
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Is this as it should be? Lots of nothings are what I'm seeing on my monitor so I wonder if they're part of my problem?
Oh, and I sometimes get a warning that GtK cannot open the display before I have to press the not-so-magic on/off button
Any advice or things to try, thankfully received.
DavidS.
Is there a way to by-pass the xorgwizard?
Or at least force Puppy to try MY xorg.conf file - I want to edit the Puppy file based on Ubuntu's works-nicely xorg.conf? Or whatever else needs altering or could be.
Checking Puppy's xorg.conf after my failures to boot into X, I see the xorg.conf driver is switched to "vesa" not the required "sis".
I do get the occasional "grep" message about not finding "sis", if that helps anyone explain what's going on.
Does anyone else have an old SiS-chipped computer that they've got trained?
David S.
Or at least force Puppy to try MY xorg.conf file - I want to edit the Puppy file based on Ubuntu's works-nicely xorg.conf? Or whatever else needs altering or could be.
Checking Puppy's xorg.conf after my failures to boot into X, I see the xorg.conf driver is switched to "vesa" not the required "sis".
I do get the occasional "grep" message about not finding "sis", if that helps anyone explain what's going on.
Does anyone else have an old SiS-chipped computer that they've got trained?
David S.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13458
A little wordy but I used Rudy Puppys defaults..give it a go
Rudy Puppys default commands were something like this
and they worked a treat, made for some HP laptops?.
puppy acpi=strict
acpi=noirq
pci=biosirq
pci=nosort
irqpoll routeirq
and this booted to a default setting of 800x600
which I adjusted to suit me to 1024x 768? or something near that.
Chris
A little wordy but I used Rudy Puppys defaults..give it a go
Rudy Puppys default commands were something like this
and they worked a treat, made for some HP laptops?.
puppy acpi=strict
acpi=noirq
pci=biosirq
pci=nosort
irqpoll routeirq
and this booted to a default setting of 800x600
which I adjusted to suit me to 1024x 768? or something near that.
Chris
davids45, you must run the 2.12-zdrv version of Puppy because the 'sis' driver module is in the zdrv_212.sfs file.
On a very old PC, xorgwizard will take a *long* time before it shows a menu. Until then, you'll see a black screen with only a blinking cursor. Be patient, the menu will eventually show.
When xorgwizard is finished, it will have added 'sis' and other bits of data to the xorg.conf.new template and written the proper xorg.conf file for your PC. Make sure you make a pup_save.3fs file (to save the settings) when you power-off the PC.
Note: This is important - if you run 'xwin' without the pup_save.3fs file containing your 'sis' xorg.conf file and the 'sis' driver module, xwin will try to find your 'sis' driver module in Puppy and not find it. When that happens, xwin automatically replaces 'sis' with 'vesa' in xorg.conf thus messing up your xorg settings...
Paul
On a very old PC, xorgwizard will take a *long* time before it shows a menu. Until then, you'll see a black screen with only a blinking cursor. Be patient, the menu will eventually show.
When xorgwizard is finished, it will have added 'sis' and other bits of data to the xorg.conf.new template and written the proper xorg.conf file for your PC. Make sure you make a pup_save.3fs file (to save the settings) when you power-off the PC.
Note: This is important - if you run 'xwin' without the pup_save.3fs file containing your 'sis' xorg.conf file and the 'sis' driver module, xwin will try to find your 'sis' driver module in Puppy and not find it. When that happens, xwin automatically replaces 'sis' with 'vesa' in xorg.conf thus messing up your xorg settings...
Paul
Methinks Raspberry Pi were ideal for runnin' Puppy Linux
G'day Chris & Paul,
Thanks for your helpful replies.
I think I've resolved the problem is due to my impatience.
I tried last night Puppy (the 2.12 zrdv disk) on my shiny new 1.87GHz Core 2 Duo 320MB HD 1GB RAM indulgence and the Xorg wizard took quite a few seconds to get the right display, which is relatively, as Paul said, a *long* time to look at a black screen.
Back to the 1990s and the old HP, trying Paul and Chris's options, after about a hour, the wizard had at last come through with a still-needing-to-be-tweaked-but-readable display.
Clicked "Okay" and then it was back to a black screen?
Being WPB, I turned the computer off but I'll try again tonight, ..... this time, before playing with the new toy.
Thanks guys, your venous liquid is to be valued for vitreous preservation (old Australian saying, Babelfish-version).
DavidS
Thanks for your helpful replies.
I think I've resolved the problem is due to my impatience.
I tried last night Puppy (the 2.12 zrdv disk) on my shiny new 1.87GHz Core 2 Duo 320MB HD 1GB RAM indulgence and the Xorg wizard took quite a few seconds to get the right display, which is relatively, as Paul said, a *long* time to look at a black screen.
Back to the 1990s and the old HP, trying Paul and Chris's options, after about a hour, the wizard had at last come through with a still-needing-to-be-tweaked-but-readable display.
Clicked "Okay" and then it was back to a black screen?
Being WPB, I turned the computer off but I'll try again tonight, ..... this time, before playing with the new toy.
Thanks guys, your venous liquid is to be valued for vitreous preservation (old Australian saying, Babelfish-version).
DavidS
Here an another idea - connect the monitor you normally use for the old HP to your new PC. Then run Puppy live on the new PC and create xorg.conf using xorgwizard.
That will give you an almost correct xorg.conf file for you HP. Edit the file replacing the video card driver name with 'sis' and the 'BusID' as per your Ubuntu info. Only the keyboard (PS/2 or USB) and mouse types (PS/2 or USB or serial) may cause problems now - try to use the same types you use on the HP).
Power-down the new PC and save a pup_save.3fs file. That file you will copy over and use on the HP to boot into Puppy.
Should work (with a little patience)
Paul
That will give you an almost correct xorg.conf file for you HP. Edit the file replacing the video card driver name with 'sis' and the 'BusID' as per your Ubuntu info. Only the keyboard (PS/2 or USB) and mouse types (PS/2 or USB or serial) may cause problems now - try to use the same types you use on the HP).
Power-down the new PC and save a pup_save.3fs file. That file you will copy over and use on the HP to boot into Puppy.
Should work (with a little patience)
Paul
Methinks Raspberry Pi were ideal for runnin' Puppy Linux
Sis5597 chipset in old HP 4404 Pavilion - video (SOLVED)
With thanks to Paul & Chris, I am very happy to add solved to the title of this topic.
And I have even jumped the ndiswrapper/wpa_supplicant hurdle to now be netable via Puppy.
Thanks again Paul, for your follow-up suggestion of switching the old CRT monitor onto the new computer. You did mention in your latest post the subject of my only unresolved peeve with the Puppy Live CDs that they seem to fail to come to heel with wireless keyboards and mice. I had all my Windows computers, old & new, using wireless keyboards & mice but had to resurrect some PS2 units from their cardboard box coffins to get Puppy going.
But this is not really relevant to this thread, so I'll get searching the fora on this next-thing-to-do.
DavidS.
And I have even jumped the ndiswrapper/wpa_supplicant hurdle to now be netable via Puppy.
Thanks again Paul, for your follow-up suggestion of switching the old CRT monitor onto the new computer. You did mention in your latest post the subject of my only unresolved peeve with the Puppy Live CDs that they seem to fail to come to heel with wireless keyboards and mice. I had all my Windows computers, old & new, using wireless keyboards & mice but had to resurrect some PS2 units from their cardboard box coffins to get Puppy going.
But this is not really relevant to this thread, so I'll get searching the fora on this next-thing-to-do.
DavidS.
Re: Sis5597 chipset in old HP 4404 Pavilion - video (SOLVED
Glad my 'switch-crt-tip' did the trick 
I'll add that to my collection of Puppy tips. Might come in handy again...
As to your wireless peripherals, perhaps you could start a new thread. Someone might just have a solution
Paul
I'll add that to my collection of Puppy tips. Might come in handy again...
As to your wireless peripherals, perhaps you could start a new thread. Someone might just have a solution
Paul
Methinks Raspberry Pi were ideal for runnin' Puppy Linux