Full boot text not displayed

[Jeffrey Windsor]

Yeah, that boot-text problem is a major one for me... since when 
something went wrong and I needed to interact with the console -- and 
there wasn't any console. I must have re-installed Mandrake 20 times 
(no kidding). Pathetic.

Frustratingly, Mandrake claims to provide an alternate kernel on their 
disk, but don't give you any option of installing it in the standard 
installation. I had to scrounge around on their disks to find the 
mandrake-approved alternate. But I was also successful with a benh 
kernel from http://www.ppckernel.org/

For me, on my happy little ole iBook, I chose one of the "specialized" 
kernels (from the links on the left of the page). Following the 
instructions next to the kernels is pretty straightforward and easy. 
Compiling is pretty easy, too, but I never wanted to invest that much 
time and processor power into the process. Check out what's there, they 
seem to have a nice selection. It's pretty much trial-and-error to find 
the right one (as far as I know).

If you have console access, but not boot messages, I'd probably just 
try the boot args and see if they work. As I mentioned before 
"video=ofonly" works for newworld machines -- I can't speak about 
oldworld.

--jw

On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 08:14 AM, Kevin Berrien wrote:

> Very odd eh.  Before YDL 3 I was running Mandrake PPC ver 6?. Anways,
> had no problems, until just recently it did the same in Mandrake.
> Thinking the box was hanging I screwed with it enough to totally hose
> the box.  It was then I checked out YDL and switched.
>
> A "benh" kernel, please elaborate.
>
> - Kevin
>
>
> On Thu, 2003-05-08 at 23:04, Jeffrey Windsor wrote:
>> FWIW, the problem was completely solved for me by upgrading to YDL 3.
>>
>> I had the same problem with Mandrake 9.1 (one of the main issues why I
>> switched to YDL). You should check your logs just in case, but in my
>> case it was a problem with the kernel. My logs told me that it 
>> couldn't
>> get the framerate (for the console?!!?) and it somehow was trying to
>> set up my iBook2 display as 1200x980 or whatever. This left me with a
>> perfectly usable X11, but no console. Thus I couldn't use MOL
>> fullscreen -- which was a major pain. In Mandrake, switching to a benh
>> kernel fixed that -- but then broke a bunch of other built-in things
>> (like, well, MOL). It was a major hassle.
>>
>> I was finally able to get the full boot messages by adding
>> "video=ofonly" to the boot args in yboot. I don't know if you can use
>> those args in bootX. Then I upgraded to YDL and all is well. Good 
>> luck.
>>
>> --jw
>>
>> On Thursday, May 8, 2003, at 08:31 PM, Kevin Berrien wrote:
>>
>>> I get the following peculiarity on my Wallstreet Powerbook when
>>> botting YDL 3.0.  bootX is configured as No Video Driver - checked.
>>>
>>> Upon boot I get the initial kernal displays down to:
>>>
>>> Setup_arch: enter
>>> Setup_arch: bootmem
>>> arch::exit
>>>
>>> And then no further text display, no daeomons starting, nothing until
>>> I get the graphical login.
>>>
>>> If I uncheck No Video Driver in bootX, I get video in 4 segments with
>>> distortion lines, and the entire boot text IS displayed as normal,
>>> graphical login starts up.
>>>
>>> Any thoughts.  While its not totally damaging, it's annoying and
>>> tricky if I had any boot failure, etc.  I am using no kernal 
>>> arguments
>>> in bootX, run 1024x768 in X Windows.
>>>
>>> - Kevin
>
>