2.13 boot sequence fails with Matrox Millenium

[rcsteiner]

Hardware is a Compaq Deskpro 6200 (PPro/200, 196MB RAM, Adaptec 2940U SCSI controller, SB AWE32, 4MB Matrox MGA Millenium).

Puppy 2.11 and 2.12 both work fine (except for detecting SCSI disks), but Puppy 2.13 does not even finish the boot sequence.

Just after the "Loading kernel modules..." line the video screen glitches and effectively locks the system, showing a strange pattern of vertical lines and dots.

This sounds similar to a problem someone else here reported with Puppy 2.12, but I'm not seeing it with 2.12, only with 2.13.

[eMeRy]

I confirm your experience. I also have an old machine with Matrox Millenium II card. 2.12 version was the last puppy which supported this card, I guess. When I boot 2.13, during the boot process, when it arrive at before the point we should choose keybord layout, the screen mixed into colour pixels the same way as you described. If I push few times 'ENTER' button blindly, I get to X at the end.
My other machine with ancient TNT videocard can boot on 2.13 without any problem.
Hope it help.
eMeRy

[rcsteiner]

I have no idea what video card it has, but the laptop didn't seem to notice a change at all in boot behavior.

Hopefully this issue will be fixed in 2.14. I'm especially interested in newer versions of Puppy because it sounds like some level of SCSI disk support is also starting to appear in the Puppy 2.x series. But SCSI support isn't so useful if the OS won't boot.

[richard.a]

In 2.13, I can only run my Matrox MGA onboard 4Mb video on either HP Vectra PII-400 series VL towers in XVesa mode, and I can get 1024x768x16bit solidly, but that's about the limit.

XOrg doesn't work.

I haven't tried anything between 2.02 and current on these machines.

Hope this helps with the problem diagnosis.

Richard in Adelaide

[rcsteiner]

Hardware is a Compaq Deskpro 6200 (PPro/200, 196MB RAM, Adaptec 2940U SCSI controller, SB AWE32, 4MB Matrox MGA Millenium (original, not Millenium II).

Puppy 2.11 and 2.12 both work fine (except for detecting SCSI disks), but neither Puppy 2.13 nor 2.14 finish the boot sequence. Actually, all versions of Puppy 1.x and 2.x that I've tried have worked just fine until 2.13. Something is SERIOUSLY broken.

Just after the "Loading kernel modules..." line the video screen glitches and effectively locks the system, showing a strange pattern of vertical lines and dots.

I can't seen to get past that point, so I'm back to 2.12 again.

[richard.a]

Interesting. I threw in the first earlier puppy 2 CD I could find (2.02 Seamonkey) and changed the X-Org to 1280x1024, and it works a dream.

I don't have 2.12, but have 2.11, and that was already on 1280x1024 with X-Org.

So, there we go. Matrox on HP/Compaq IS bad news with 2.13 Haven't tried with 2.14 because I didn't realise it was out, haven't been watching the forums closely this year (yet).

Richard

[eMeRy]

The same here with matrox millenium II video card.
I spent several hours to solve it. After trying lot of modifications, at the end (checking the modification in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file) I tried boot up with 'nopcmcia' boot parameter and YES, puppy 2.14 boots up flawlessly.
I have no any idea what is the connection with the matrox video card and the pcmcia modul, but it worked for me.
Please try and feedback.

[rcsteiner]

I spent several hours to solve it. After trying lot of modifications, at the end (checking the modification in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file) I tried boot up with 'nopcmcia' boot parameter and YES, puppy 2.14 boots up flawlessly.

Whaddaya know. I just tried that in 2.14, and it worked.

Huh.

2.13 works as well when booting with the "puppy nopcmcia" directive. Very interesting!

Thank you so much!

-Rich

[rcsteiner]

I wonder if a lot of the PCI card detection stuff is off a little? 2.12 and 2.11 used to autodetect both of the NICs in this box, but 2.13 and 2.14 don't detect either one.

At least the Puppy Network Configuration's manual module loader works.

[eMeRy]

It's my pleasure the solution has been found.

I also had to load drivers by wizards for the network card (old-fashioned PCI rtl8029) and the sound card (SB-16 Vibra ISA-type).
After the configurations were saved, they work fine.

eMeRy

[rcsteiner]

It's my pleasure the solution has been found.

Thank you again for your timely assistance.

I also had to load drivers by wizards for the network card (old-fashioned PCI rtl8029) and the sound card (SB-16 Vibra ISA-type).
After the configurations were saved, they work fine.

Sadly, most of my Puppy boxes have SCSI hard disks and no CD burners or USB ports, so saving my configuration isn't currently possible.

I simply keep them running as long as I can. In fact, I just rebooted my only DSL (Damn Small Linux) box after 183 days. Not bad...

[richard.a]

The same here with matrox millenium II video card.
I spent several hours to solve it. After trying lot of modifications, at the end (checking the modification in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file) I tried boot up with 'nopcmcia' boot parameter and YES, puppy 2.14 boots up flawlessly.
I have no any idea what is the connection with the matrox video card and the pcmcia modul, but it worked for me.
Please try and feedback.

That seems an undocumented boot parameter on the start-up screen, but I found that it worked with 2.13

I got X-Org to work at 1280x1024 at 60Hz and 70Hz, nothing higher in the way of vertical monitor rate nor resolution, I wasn't going to move furniture to get a better monitor for the test lol!.

So looks like this is a work-around temporary fix, but it's annoying to have to baby-sit the computer and type that boot message every time. Thankyou for delving into it and passing it on

I've downloaded 2.14 but haven't yet burned it.

[eMeRy]

rcsteiner wrote:

I simply keep them running as long as I can. In fact, I just rebooted my only DSL (Damn Small Linux) box after 183 days. Not bad...

Sounds great! There must be some advantages Puppy you have given a try it beside DSL... (BTW, I also came from DSL to Puppy...)

richard.a wrote:

So looks like this is a work-around temporary fix, but it's annoying to have to baby-sit the computer and type that boot message every time.

Yes it's true. I recommend frugal install to get rid of it. You'll boot up without cd and can put any boot parameter to grub menu line. I've just finished this procedure so I can help you if you need.

[richard.a]

I burned the 2.14 ISO and ran it. It defaulted to Vesa, 1024x768x16 absolute maximum.

So I accepted that and then did an X-Org configure via a reboot... It would allow me 1280x1024x16 without needing to do a puppy pfix=nopcmcia start command.

The configure menu didn't offer greater resolution than that, and I figured there wasn't much point in editing the X-Org configuration file as a result.

1280x1024 matched to my eyesight needs larger fonts and taskbar anyway.

The only thing is that it required a second attempt to set it, using a 60Hz frame rate.

But that's cool, it works nicely.

PuppyLinux has never has liked the Aztech ISA sound card the HP Vectras fitted. SuSE (from ver 8 onwards) finds and uses it, but surprisingly not the customised Sun Java Desktop v2 (for Linux) which is effectively a SuSE 8.2 with skins.

Anyway, all good news at this end.

Thanks again.

Richard in the dark of night, heading to bed

[rcsteiner]

rcsteiner wrote:

I simply keep them running as long as I can. In fact, I just rebooted my only DSL (Damn Small Linux) box after 183 days. Not bad...

Sounds great! There must be some advantages Puppy you have given a try it beside DSL... (BTW, I also came from DSL to Puppy...)

Puppy has a far more elegant presentation, I think, and I tend to prefer it as a desktop OS in its default configuration. It's very slick, and it seems to work (except for the issues I've encountered in the two most recent versions).

However, the fact that DSL provides access to Synaptic (and the thousands of debian packages that Synaptic can install) makes it nicer in some ways, and the fact that it sees my SCSI disks makes it invaluable to me.

The two (Puppy and DSL) are currently tied for being my favorite LiveCD.

[Sage]

Noted that some of you guys have been able to load the rtl8029AS NIC in earlier Puppy versions, but it doesn't seem to appear in the list with Dingo4? Has it been dropped? There's a lot of them about. Any workarounds?

[richard.a]

Noted that some of you guys have been able to load the rtl8029AS NIC in earlier Puppy versions, but it doesn't seem to appear in the list with Dingo4? Has it been dropped? There's a lot of them about. Any workarounds?

I can't respond to that, I'm afraid. But I'd like comment further on something I didn't consider in the earlier discussion...

The same here with matrox millenium II video card.
I spent several hours to solve it. After trying lot of modifications, at the end (checking the modification in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file) I tried boot up with 'nopcmcia' boot parameter and YES, puppy 2.14 boots up flawlessly.
I have no any idea what is the connection with the matrox video card and the pcmcia modul, but it worked for me.
Please try and feedback.

This IS a problem as I see it.

We are talking about earlier machines, and I've been donated a couple of elderly laptops for an old folks cyber-cafe, which don't have inbuilt NICs. Indeed the laptops/notebooks designed for Windows Me and earlier (that I have seen, anyway) don't consider a network jack necessary, though almost all from that era have a dialup modem inbuilt.

So if you turn off PCMCIA support, how do you then get access to the "wild blue yonder"?

That's a bit of a head scratcher.

It also might explain why some of the video problems I've encountered (with an enabled NIC in the cardbus slot) are there.

Anyone got any ideas please?

Richard in Adelaide
the driest capital
of the driest state
of the driest continent

[Sage]

Thanks for those comments, richard.a . Of course, I tried the pcmcia trick to no avail. It's fairly important to include the drivers of complete families of NIC, not least because I have a dozen or so recent boards with onboard network ports that are U/S. Board manufacturers always had trouble integrating reliably, even though the chipset is the same as on a card (invariably Reaktek). Network networks can be heavy current consumers so that might upset things? Additionally, those little relays can pass their MTBF ratings? Who knows?!
Realtek 80xx cards are in abundance out here and very reliable. They can, in principle, be plugged into any board of any age when the onboard unit fails.
Is there a chance that Barry might read this?!

[Sage]

Had the opportunity to check it in P3.01 this morning and, surprise, surprise, the RTL80xx drivers are in there.
Not too happy about all that's been happening with Dingo. BK wants to be all things to all men. Frankly, I wouldn't use WiFi [hardwire the house] if you paid me, Compiz is a great laugh but mostly an old ISA 1 or 2Mb video card should suffice for surfing [PS3 or Wii for gaming], there are other ways of dealing with last weeks batch of EastEnders than iPlayer and the best thing to do with USB modems is to send them back, cancel your subscription and choose a proper ISP that sends out routers (Tiscali, Pipex, etc).
Personally, I don't have any problems looking at all this clever coding but it doesn't enhance my modus operandi one jot. Too many bright young lads wasting their intellectual prowess chasing rainbows?
It's that old wood-for-trees paradox. Too many folk can't answer the simple question "Why do you want a PC? What do you want to achieve?" Quite often the truth is that the guy next door has got one! Next time someone tells you they're going to buy a PC or asks you to build one for them, ask them those simple questions and see how offended and defensive they turn.

[richard.a]

Mate I think you and I came out of the same box, lol

Richard