[Scottish] Debian 3.0r1 Install + XFree

[Craig Perry]

Hi all :)

I just got the Debian 3.0 boxed set through the door and thought I had
nothing better to do than throw it into my laptop. Booted from the CD,
and it seemed to go straight into a graphical install. The only thing
is, it seems to be an older X server (i.e. < 4.x) and my graphics
card/bridge for the LCD wasn't supported until XFree 4ish (I think).

Now if I remember correctly I can get the older XFree's not to freeze if
I can get it into framebuffer mode. Reading around the documentation
etc. would suggest that this X server is already in Framebuffer mode!
Now either I've made up the thing about getting the Xfree 3.something to
work under FB or the X server isn't in FB mode. I can disable X and go
into a text mode install by passing something like "vga=vga16:off" and
get the base install done.

Then the problem comes when I try to reboot from my harddrive, it goes
back into a messed up X and I can't "ctrl+alt+bksp" kill the X server or
"alt+Fx" to another text based console. I tried the rescue option from
the install CD which falls over with a kernel panic for no apparent
reason.

Then I tried to edit lilo.conf from another boot CD and run sbin/lilo
but the lilo in the debian install requires a version of GlibC :( and my
boot CD doesn't have its own lilo!

I'm stuck! How do I get it to boot into text mode and not graphical, I'm
sure I can sort everything myself from there.

p.s. I wonder if this is actually a graphical install at all, because
before when I had X problems, it used to freeze my whole system and make
the screen look like it was melting. This doesn't happen, I can toggle
Caps on/off etc. and the screen doesn't freeze, instead white and blue
vertical bars make nice dancing sequences on my screen.

Cheers, Craig.

--
Craig Perry
craig@onemanstudfarm.co.uk -- personal
onemanstudfarm@hotmail.com -- general
craig@onemanstudfarm.fsnet.co.uk -- misc