[ltp] Linux and Windows Screen Display

[SOTL]

Hi All

Several weeks back I reported that my dual boot Thinkpad had developed the bad 
habit of displaying Windows correctly while at the same time refusing to 
display Linux. 

For those of you who do not recall something happened. The computer was 
working fine except one of the hinges was slightly shaky - not much just 
slightly. The computer had been dropped off a table ,30 inches I think, a 
couple of years before while in its protective scarring bag. It had sustained 
no operational damage but physically one of the hinges just was not factory 
tight any more. Anyway, a couple of months I had to move. The computer was 
left in a secure location in my truck for 3 or 4 weeks everything looked fine 
and there was definitely no possibility of any physical damage being 
sustained due to shock but heat damage is another issue entirely. The 
computer could have been subjected to high temperatures for some days. I 
Florida it gets hot in cars with windows closed and no air conditioning.

On restarting the computer it was noted that there were vertical bright blue 
lines about 3/8 inch apart across the screen, that when the normal boot 
sequence started that the sequence was unreadable with all words being 
misspelled and that there was a tendency for lock up with some form of words 
one would suppose to mean that the system was installing the kernel. Grub did 
allow one to choose Windows or boot into it normal mode of Linux. If one 
chose Windows the system started and worked correctly. If one chose Linux the 
screen simply did not work correct.

Now having a second HD which was almost set up to be equal to the Thinkpad's 
standard HD a quick change of HD produced equal results with the advantage 
that I was able to play with the Thinkpad without destroying data on the 
standard HD.

After playing with the Thinkpad it was off to the old computer shop for 
hardware repairs as I was unable to physically perform repairs myself. I had 
started physical repairs but simply just could not go on. Two weeks, total 
dissemble several times, three technicians in a shop devoted to Linux and the 
consensus was that there is a cracked motherboard or some such. What was 
never actually ascertained but there is some physical issue which the 
consensus was to start by replacing the Thinkpad's components.

Not not being rich and needing the laptop fully functional not just the 
Windows side I started playing again.

First I tried to install a newer version of Linux. The DVD latest Ubuntu disk 
I have simply refused to run - PERIOD - total, completely non functional. I 
had chose Ubuntu for the first test simply because of its reputation of being 
the most Laptop friendly. 

Next I tried the most advanced desktop distribution I have which is the latest 
version of commercial grade SuSE (not OpenSuSE but real SuSE) 10.1.  Well it 
would install and it would run sometimes but. Now this "BUT" produces exactly 
the same response that another big similar "BUT" had produces several years 
ago in this identical box which was that after installation everything worked 
sort of. At that time it took a year for me first to ascertain there was a 
problem and second to ascertain that the problem was a read CD read error on 
installation but only on one set of CDs from one Linux distribution. These 
two were commercial grade CD meaning they are not recorded but stamped. With 
this issue in the back of my mind a number of installation probably on the 
order of 20 or so were implemented. After each installation at some point the 
GUI would dimply lock up generating a total complete system crash. Knowing 
this some how was related to a screen issue and being laze it was simpler to 
do the instalation over while of course working on other issue - non computer 
related.

Well three distributions down, off to Fedora which promptly displayed all the 
same issues as SuSE. The original distribution was Mandrake 10.1.

Being stubborn and having an more stable take off of Red Hat called Scientific 
Linux put out out by the boom boom boys at Los Alamos I decided to try it. 
Guess what it worked. Screen resolution was 800x600 instead of 1024x786 but 
it did work. Now Scientific Linux being very stable means that it is also not 
exactly cutting edge software. Infract one might say it is a little slow in 
the features that I like.

So what to do I have a operating system in Linux in a distribution that I do 
not like on the spare HD and a Linux distribution some 3 years on on the 
normal HD which did work but now does not. 

Back to the normal HD to see what may be arranged. First attempts, yes there 
were several but only due to my bungling, the screen resolution was reset to 
800x600. Well I did work better than it did before but not as well as the 
Scientific Linux does. Next it was observed that the screen which must 
refresh frequently as KWorldClock had been the preferred screen background 
was not refreshing so KWorldClock was replaced with a single standard 
background. This helped quite a bit. Instering thing to note were that 
reseting the screen resolution from 1024x768 to 800x600 did not change the 
resolution of the screen. Reducing the colors to 15 bit from 24 did not 
appear to help performance as the screen was just a screwed up afterwards as 
before. Through all the preceding it was never noted what the screen issues 
where when the computer did actually work Back in the original Mandrake 
instalation. There once was a screen saver back in the Red Hat 6 days that 
made the screen into a jig saw puzzle and randomly moved the pieces around. 
That is a close an explanation of what was happening Mandrake. In Scientific 
Linux I have a very nice fully operational screen. Back to the latest 
modified version of the Mandrake 10.1 settings I have a normal screen that is 
sluggish.

The issue to me and the reason for this posting is does any body else have 
problems with their Thinkpad along similar lines and if so what method was 
used to solve or correct the issue.

Oh, and least I forget why the Windows works and the Linux does not is because 
Windows does not have the screen abilities of Linux.