# [solved]Blank screen at boot.

## cirofren

Just to warn you all, this is another Radeon 7500 post.

I'm sorry to write this, as I've just spent four hours trying to find an answer on these forums, I'm sorry because, I'm pretty sure the answer is somewhere here, I just can't find it among the thousands of posts.

When I boot (same problem w/ LILO and Grub) the screen flickers for a second and then turns off, no matter what drivers I have installed.

I tried rebuilding with the vanilla sources, as that seemed to help some people, but that just made the screen stay on for an extra second.

I should mention here that I'm using a Laptop, and if I plug in a monitor at this point and hit Fn F8 (switch to CRT), everything shows up fine on the CRT, I then switch back to the laptop and it now displays everything as it should.

I emerged X because I eventually wanted it working, and after a night of trying to get this boot process to work I felt like the simple process of emerging something would get my spirits back, of course here we get more trouble. As far as I can tell, X works fine with a monitor attached, it even says it's using the Radeon card. Only once I've run X, even after I exit, I can never get the laptop screen back.

I'll admit that although I've tried almost everything I've found on these boards, I don't really know what I'm doing, so any help would be much appreciated.

 - cirofrenLast edited by cirofren on Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:17 am; edited 1 time in total

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## llamakc

Do you have this line in /etc/fstab?

devpts          /dev/pts        devpts          defaults                0 0 

I had a similar problem and adding that fixed the problem. If you DO have this and still don't get a console, let's see .config from your kernel build.

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## cirofren

That line didn't seem to do anything.

I typed it exactly as you have written there.

I tried upgrading to 2.6 (dev-sources), this seems to make things worse, I can't get my screen at all. Would it be worth trying the love sources (I heard they have more patches)?

With the 2.4 (vanilla) kernel I can get a terminal if I disable everything to do with framebuffering. But god it looks ugly (everything is really large, I had to change the font size just to get it useable). But I still have all of the problems with X.

I don't really care about getting 2.6 working, I just want something to work. Tonight marks my fourth night on this.

I'll post the .config files once samba finishes emerging.

edit: 

2.4 vanilla config

2.6 gentoo-dev config

edit: Just so it's clear I'm running a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop P42.80GHz with built in Radeon 7500 graphics.

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## Aman9090

Well, just remember that the Radeon mobile chipsets are not supported AT ALL by either xfree86 OR ATI themselves.

There are not any drivers for them on Linux and I believe xfree has had a lot of trouble getting them to run properly. This does not mean, however, that it can't run.

When you boot LILO, isn't there an option where you can add what graphics card you are using? Maybe that would help. It seems that if you are not getting any text at all whatsoever (that scentence sucks - if you seem to have the screen flicker BEFORE text appears - correction) then it is occuring before Linux actually starts the boot process.

I may suggest more configuration of your bootloader. I would definitely give you instructions on how to do this, but my work has the gentoo website blocked, and I forget what to type anyways. I appologize. Maybe someone can help me out?

Hope this helps.

Aman9090

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## christsong84

I apologize in advance for not reading too deeply your post...just a quick question: are you trying to use framebuffer at all? (I had the same blank screen on boot when I tried to use that until I had it configured just right)

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## cirofren

Not in the 2.4 kernel (which is the one I'm trying to get working) no. And X still has all of it's problems. It's on in the 2.6 kernel, but that was just a quick test to see if anything changed.

The thing is though, when I switch to an externel monitor and then back to the LCD everything works perfectly (in a console, not X), with the frambuffer and all.

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## cirofren

I've been reading through the grub manual (info grub) and can't find anything about a video card option.

I did however try testvbe and got ">Error 23 : Error while parsing number". I'm not sure if that's relevant or not.

I'm going to try what I found here. I'll post weather it helps or not.

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## cirofren

Well those instructions got it working, I'm not sure how as I was sure I'd done it all before. I guess I must have missed something.

X still doesn't work but I can boot 2.4 with the framebuffer and all it's graphicsy goodness. Now onto configuring X, that's the end of this thread anyway.

Thank you everyone for your help.

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## recoco.zhang

hi cirofren,can you show your kernel config?i had encounter same problem.than you very much!

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## cirofren

The kernel configuration file is here.

Hope that helps.

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## pjp

Moved from Installing Gentoo.

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## mothbitten

Cirofren, I have a Inspiron 5100 as well and I'm not having that problem. I looked at your config file and something that I saw was that you enabled video mode selection support in the ConsoleDrivers section. I'm not sure what it does, but it seems that that could be what is causing the problem. Try disabling that.

[edit] Oops, didn't notice the "solved" until I posted, which leaves me to wonder, was I right?

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## cirofren

Nope, it works and I still have that enabled.

Thanks anyway.

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## phunni

 *cirofren wrote:*   

> Nope, it works and I still have that enabled.
> 
> Thanks anyway.

 

Did you ever get 2.6 working on your laptop?  I have been trying to for a while and I can't get a decent kernel working - I wondered if you had a config I could steal...?

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## cirofren

I'm using 2.4 for the moment.

Although I do remember seeing a 2.6 config for a 5100 on the forums somwehere, a search would probably help you.

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