Bug 26211 – The install starts in unsupported video mode

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

[Description Alexey Parshin 2003-08-08 09:31:48 UTC]

The installation of 64-bit 1.4rc4 doesn't start at all when used the LiveCD from
releases/..1.4rc4. It fails right after boot: gentoo with MMU error.

The installation of LiveCD of 64 bit 1.4rc4 from experimental starts and
switches to the video mode unsupported by my flat panel - I couldn't continue.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. boot: gentoo
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
I can see ~ 'loading boot image' and then - unsupported screen mode. I can see
some disk activity for about a minute, and then - nothing I can do.

Expected Results:  
1) Down grade the video mode
or
2) Text installation option
or
3) Video mode selection option like /1024x768 or /800x600

[Comment 1 Jason Wever (RETIRED) 2003-08-11 16:04:20 UTC]

Unfortunately there's no way to set resolutions across the board on sparcs like you can with x86 with the vga= option.  However I have added a video.txt to the newest experimental LiveCD that you can read via the SILO label video that talks about this a bit more.  This should provide some answers to this.

The new experimental LiveCD is on the mirrors at experimental/sparc/livecd/sparc64/gentoo-sparc64-1.4_rc4-11Aug2003.iso.bz2

[Comment 2 Jason Wever (RETIRED) 2003-08-24 14:29:14 UTC]

Due to the way sun framebuffers work and the fact that there's no unified video mode resolution settings like on x86, this really can't be fixed.  I'll add it to the list of things to add to the FAQ however.

[Comment 3 Jason Wever (RETIRED) 2003-09-26 04:45:40 UTC]

Adjusting status back to resolved:cantfix as bugzilla migration altered state.

[Comment 4 Alexey Parshin 2003-09-26 08:01:16 UTC]

The only thing is required to fix it - to add a boot configuration called
'lcdfb' with the append="video=atyfb:1024x768@60", since most of the LCD
panels now support that mode.

[Comment 5 Jason Wever (RETIRED) 2003-09-26 13:38:26 UTC]

Unfortunately, that only works if

a) you have an ATI framebuffer (not everyone does)
b) OBP is setup to use that resolution to begin with.

I'd rather not put video labels in the SILO config that only work for some
buffers and not others.

I plan to put questions like this in the upcomming FAQ in addition to the
video SILO label which also explains this.

[Comment 6 Andrew Cooks (RETIRED) 2003-11-25 04:36:42 UTC]

Is this documented yet?

[Comment 7 Joe Kallar (RETIRED) 2003-11-25 11:16:02 UTC]

I will have the FAQ up shortly.

[Comment 8 Jason Wever (RETIRED) 2003-12-06 13:30:11 UTC]

As previously mentioned, and to be consistant with the upcoming tftpboot images, I will not be implementing this feature.