(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I have 2 computers. The newer one runs Precise Puppy fantastically, frugal install.

The older one is having difficulty.
Specs: Dell Dimension 4400. 1gb ram, P4 1.7ghz, Nvidia GeForce Fx 5200 card, 128mb.
Older Puppies worked well on this computer, except video was always choppy, so I was excited that Precise Puppy video on the new computer was smooth.

Using the same disk that is working with the newer computer, many of the menu entries are invisible, and I think some are entirely missing.
For example, I can't see the shut down button.
The desktop itself appears normal.

I believe this may be related to a video driver issue, but not sure. I tried to change it to vesa (which worked w/prior Puppies on this computer), but cannot get it to change.
I may try to get some screenshots to show what is happening.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Bob

A screenshot would be worth a thousand words.
Crop out the unnecessary bits with mtPaint (Image -> Crop) then, if necessary, reduce it to 800 wide or less with (Image -> Scale canvas.) That way, the forum will display it.

Flash wrote:.. reduce it to 800 wide or less with (Image -> Scale canvas.)..

600

Hopefully I can post these images--I have never tried this before!

Darn...didn't work!

Let me try again in a minute...

Wow, thanks Barkin!

I have a LOT of learning to do...

Bob

Luxeon wrote:Hopefully I can post these images--I have never tried this before!

Darn...didn't work!

Let me try again in a minute...

Fixed the image problem ...

It seems to me a JWM problem. I'd try to install, if possible, the mavrothal jwm-590-i486.pet you can find at:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=235

Hello Luxeon,

That problem is indeed as you say a video driver issue, one of the Xorg drivers (nv or nouveau - forget which one) produces this effect on some machines including my Dell Dimension 4600 with the same Nvidia card as yours.

I note that you have tried vesa which again as you say usually works. I'm surprised it doesn't.

One thing you could try is installing the Nvidia driver which is in the puppy-precise repo in Puppy Package Manager.

EDIT:- Thought I would test Precise Puppy 5.4.3 Live CD on my Dell Dimension 4600 with Nvidia Ge Force Fx 5200 card and confirmed that I also get the missing menus. Driver is nouveau. Running Xorg wizard I find that 1024 x 768 x 16 resolution displays OK but 1024 x 768 x 24 and higher resolutions do not. Not a sausage from vesa and trying nv just goes to blackscreen with no escape

Tried installing the Nvidia driver from PPM but it was doing some horrendous things. Not loading, dialogs asking me to reboot and run xorgwizard, some other driver "fbdev" or something reported as loaded (by first-run) with huge (low resolution) icons and tray and that froze when I tried to exit to prompt.

Yes this is caused by Precise trying to us the nouveau driver.
The driver is not completely compatible with your graphics card.
Seems the nouveau driver is not one size fits all for all Nvidia graphics hardware. Likes the new stuff, but not anything of age.

You can try this option:

Boot with the Precise Live CD.
At the boot screen hit F2.
Add the command puppy pfix=nox
This will get you to a prompt.
Type xorgwizard at the prompt.
Select the vesa driver.
set resolution.
run test to see if it works.
finish xorgwizard.
back at prompt.
Type xwin
should see desktop.

You can also try this boot option:

puppy pfix=ram nouveau.modeset=0

Wow, excellent. I will try this out hopefully in the next few days (pretty busy this weekend).

MANY thanks for the help...I will try to report back asap.

I also considered removing the video card, as it never seemed to increase performance over the OEM graphics chipset.

On a side-note, I will probably get a new-used tower from our property disposition in the next few weeks. Typically under $100 for a Pentium D 3ghz, 2gb ram upgradeable to 4gb, 160+gb hard drive (same spec as the "newer" computer I reference above).

Puppy will SCREAM on that system.

Edit: just used this fix "puppy pfix=ram nouveau.modeset=0" and it worked!

Again, many thanks.

Bob