I've updated gentoo-dev-sources from 2.6.9 to 2.6.10. With the same config, or doing changes instead, I cannot make vesa-tng to work. It always revert to a 640x480 text framebuffer, not the 1280x1024 with gensplash theme I used before. The vesafb module says (via dmesg) that a wrong screen width was given, althought I've tried lot of parameters, and using the default in-kernel vesafb-tng resolution option. I've tracked the problem to the virtual frame buffer module: 1) If I compile it as a module, the module fails to load and I get the 640x480 text mode. If I try a "modprobe vfb" I get an error (will post it later, I'm not at home). 2) If i compile it into the kernel, the same 640x480 mode appears, the text is written until filling the screen, but no scroll happens anymore. I cannot switch between virtual terminals or anything, only the starting of the dmesg is shown. Framebuffer is completelly frozen. In the forums thread http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1964712#1964712 there is more people with this problem, so it's not a problem of kernel misconfiguration.
I had the same problem, and tracked it down to being caused by a wrong kernel command line option for the vesa-tng driver: From 2.6.9 to 2.6.10, the option 'vram' seems to have been replaced by a new 'vtotal' option (complemented by another, 'vremap'; have a look at /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt). I had a kernel command line parameter video=vesafb:1280x1024-16,mtrr,ywrap,vram:64 which had to be changed to video=vesafb:1280x1024-16,mtrr,ywrap,vtotal:64 That fixed the problem for me. As it seems, any module parameter for the vesafb-tng module which is not syntactically correct ends up being interpreted as a video mode. Since 'vram:64' is no longer a legal module parameter, but isn't a legal videomode either, the driver complains about no width being given (the screen width being the first parameter in a legal mode string). (So maybe, there is a clever way of improving command line parsing and, in particular, reporting errors in the vesafb-tng module without bloating it too much!?)
Lars got he fix for my problem. From my part, this bug can be marked as fixed ;)
Not sure if you want to do anything with this feedback... if you don't, just close it :)
Didn't know a no developer could close a bug request. It's closed now. Thanx.
