[ltp] T21 -- RH 7.1 no MPEGs with xmms

D. Sen linux-thinkpad@www.bm-soft.com
Mon, 07 May 2001 14:50:53 -0400


Friedemann Baitinger wrote:

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> On Mon, 7 May 2001, D. Sen wrote:
>
> > Friedemann Baitinger wrote:
> >
> > > I agree. And to complete the list of problems: Once in X you can't
> > > switch to consoles anymore. More presicely, once you switch to any of
> > > the consoles all you get is a black screen. The same is true when X is
> > > terminated. I have just verified that this still happens on a freshly
> > > installed RedHat 7.1.
> > >
> >
> > Well, the latest BIOS seems to have improved the situation a bit with regard to this
> > bug. Markus Alt posted ( http://www.bm-soft.com/~bm/archives/200103/msg00170.html )
> > that he got better results by enabling screen expansion during boot time. This
> > helped until you connected an external monitor (at which point you couldnt get the
> > virtual consoles again). However, with the latest BIOS.......I have had the virtual
> > consoles up for a week.
>
> Good point, I had seen Markus' posting but never followed up. I have now
> just tried both configurations "HV Expansion" Disabled and Enabled and
> guess what: With expansion _enabled_ I get the black screens and with
> expansion _disabled_ I can terminate X and find myself back on a working
> console. Of course it is a small console then but still better than just
> a black screen.
>

Yes, it could be *disabling* screen expansion that makes it work. It works on my TP when
I have large fonts, filling the screeen....(that would seem to imply *enabling* screen
expansion but I am not clear which terminology is correct).

>
> Can you provide some details with respect to updating the BIOS? Where
> can I get it? Which version do I need? How can it be applied safely?
>

I followed the instructions on this URL:
( http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/MIGR-4PJN8Y.html ) to create a bootable diskette (from
any machine running Windows). Used the bootable diskette to boot up the TP......and
followed the instructions. Its fairly simple.

Alternatively you can do it from an utility running under windows. You need to have the
TP running windows for this. I dont usually use this. But here is the relevant URL.
http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/MIGR-4Q2KM5.html


>
> - --
> Friedemann Baitinger      fb@baiti.net      http://baiti.net/fb/
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--
D. Sen, Room E167
AT&T Labs-Research
Shannon Laboratory
180 Park Ave.
Florham Park NJ 07932-0971
Ph: 973-360-8546
http://www.research.att.com/~dsen



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