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Bug 22158

Summary: Blank screen after initial initrd selection
Product: Gentoo Release Media Reporter: Jim Cooper <Jim.Cooper>
Component: EverythingAssignee: Bob Johnson (RETIRED) <livewire>
Status: RESOLVED CANTFIX    
Severity: blocker    
Priority: High    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: x86   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---

Description Jim Cooper 2003-06-03 08:04:47 UTC
I have a "home brew" system, with Athlon XP 2600+/333, GeForce Ti4200-AGP8X,
etc., and using an LCD monitor hooked to the DVI interface.

When I boot any flavor of LiveCD! (I've tried "America's Army" GameCD, as well
as Gentoo 1.4 rc 3 "Basic"), I see the initial screen prompting for me to hit
return to start booting the system.

Regardless of what I do at this time (just hit Enter, type '1280' and hit Enter,
etc.), the screen blanks, and I never see any output after that.  The CD does
run for a short while, but I have no clue what might be happening... whether it
hit an error, or actually booted properly.


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Insert LiveCD! into CDROM drive.
2.  Reboot system



Expected Results:  
Would've been nice to see _some_ output, even if it just told me it couldn't
boot for some reason or other.
Comment 1 Bob Johnson (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2003-06-03 08:17:05 UTC
hold shift, then type "nofb" 
 
you either have one of the motherboards that isnt  supporting framebuffer 
well, or hitting the 1gig mem + fb bug. 
Comment 2 Jim Cooper 2003-06-06 08:18:51 UTC
I'm glad that there is a workaround (and yes, it did work for me), but this is NOT fixed.

From the GentooGames page:

"The initial efforts of Gentoo Games will be focused around the Gentoo GameCD technology, which allows anyone with a modern PC to put a CD in their computer, turn it on, and have the GameCD boot directly into the game."

This is not happening.

There is no mention on that page about holding shift and typing 'nofb', which means novices will be unable to see the games, and will conclude that they wasted their time getting the ISO... defeating the purported aim of the site.

As for my personal situation, I would bet on it being the "1gig mem + fb bug" - I have a Gigabyte 7VAXP and an MSI GeForce Ti4200-AGP8X.  I also have 1G RAM.
Comment 3 Markus Nigbur (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2003-11-19 06:19:51 UTC
we can't fix it without releasing a nofb only CD, which would involve further work and time.