Upgrading to Puppy 2.12, where's Xorg?

[nicom]

I have had Puppy 2.01 running successfully on a PII, 350 MHz machine. It is a full HD installation and Puppy is the only OS on the machine. I am able to use either Xvesa or Xorg at 1024x768x24 resolution on a 17" CRT.

I am now trying to update to 2.12 but have been unable to boot completely from the CD (MD5sum checked) on this machine. The problem occurs when I get to the Xorgwizard wizard step. If I select Xorg I can choose size and resolution but when I try to test it drops back to command line after flashing

• Can't open display:o
  dc:stack underflow

If I try to skip the test it drops straight to the command line.
If I try Xvesa I do not get a choice of resolution and it drops straight to a fuzzy desktop at 640x480x16 resolution. No other resolution option is offered. Rerunning Xorgwizard and using resolution code 0x0118 has no effect.

I have tried the CD on other computers and it behaves correctly.

Can anyone help?

[WhoDo]

If I try to skip the test it drops straight to the command line.
If I try Xvesa I do not get a choice of resolution and it drops straight to a fuzzy desktop at 640x480x16 resolution. No other resolution option is offered. Rerunning Xorgwizard and using resolution code 0x0118 has no effect.

Use the Xvesa option, and when you get to that "fuzzy desktop", go to the Xvesa wizard from the setup menu. That will give you the resolution options you seek, and you can gradually move up the scale until you get to where you are happy.

On some machines, Xvesa seems to default to the lowest possible resolution. That usually means a red and black desktop at 640x480. Using the wizard to tweak the resolution always seems to work for me.

Hope that helps.

[nicom]

Tried that.
Unfortunatley 640x480x16 is still the only option. If I press the "More" button and try codes (0x0118 etc) it still drops back to 640x480x16.

[Gn2]

Manually edit :

Code: Select all

xorgconfig

Have your hardware specs handy .

Restart desktop (xwin)

[nicom]

Thanks Gn2.

Before I tried your suggestion last night I thought I'd try a shortcut. I copied the xorg.config file from my hard disk installation to /etc/x11 then restarted X. The same low resolution xvesa desktop came up.

So next I went through xorgconfig as you suggested. The video card is an AccelGraphics and the chipset was identified by my Puppy 2.01 xorg.config as permedia 2. This combination is listed in the list of cards in xorgconfig. Unfortunately when I restarted X the same low resolution xvesa desktop appeared.

What really puzzles me is that it works well with Puppy 2.01. The version of Puppy 2.12 I downloaded was not the zdrv version. Do I need the zdrv_212.sfs file?

[BarryK]

The 2.12 puppy without the zdrv file also has the xorg drivers missing and only has 'vesa' and 'i810' drivers. That is probably your problem, so go for the bigger Puppy.

[nicom]

Thanks Barry, that seems to explains the problem.

Since my ultimate intention is to update my HD installation, could I just open the iso and copy the relevant files (vmlinuz, initrd.gz and pup_xxx.sfs) to the HD and reboot. Would this retain my old xorg settings and drivers or would they be overwritten?

[Dougal]

Since my ultimate intention is to update my HD installation, could I just open the iso and copy the relevant files (vmlinuz, initrd.gz and pup_xxx.sfs) to the HD and reboot. Would this retain my old xorg settings and drivers or would they be overwritten?

Are you using a "frugal" install (pup_2xx.sfs, vmlinuz and initrd.gz copied to the HD)?

In that case you just need to replace them with the new ones. But if you need drivers from the zdrv.sfs addon, as Barry suggested, you will also need to have to copy that file to your HD, next to the pup_212.sfs.

[nicom]

Dougal,

My existing setup is a full HD installation as the machine is dedicated to Puppy. So my preferrence is just to upgrade that.

If the full install makes upgrading more problematic perhaps I should experiment with a frugal installation on another partition with a view to migrating that way. Either way I will need the zdrv file but I can download that separately rather than downloading the full iso.