Colors and resolution in Compaq Armada 1530

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Colors and resolution in Compaq Armada 1530
started by: ilias

Posted by ilias on Sep. 27 2005,09:04

Hello,

I install the latest version of DSL (1.5) in my laptop.
My laptop has: Pentium MMX 133Mhz, 32MB, video adapter CL-GD7548 1.40 IPCI, CSTN 12,1" (in Win95 working perfect SVGA-800x600-256 colors). The installation on hard disk it was without any kind of problems.javascript:emoticon('

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smilie
I made login as root and the GUI it was awful. I run xsetup.sh and set Xvesa xserver at 800x600x8. The same awful GUI. Then I try the Xfbdev xserver and give me the following error: [XIO: fatal IO error 104 (conection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0" after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining].
I try several combination of resolution-color depth in Xvesa and nothing at all (no icons, awful colors etc.). I put in lilo.conf vga=771 and I make some combination with Xvesa. Result no icons, awful colors etc.
I change the vga=771 to 787 and again combination with Xvesa. Result: no icons, awful colors etc.

Please tell me what goings wrong? How to fix the problem?
Any suggestions?

Best Regards,
Ilias

Posted by AwPhuch on Sep. 27 2005,16:45

Not the exact model, but it might give you a start bud!

< http://tuxmobil.org/compaq_armada1520d.html >

starting from
< http://tuxmobil.org/compaq.html >

Hope that helps

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by Your Fuzzy God on Sep. 27 2005,16:45

That native resolution for that laptop seems to be 800x600, so stick with that resolution. Just try changing the color depth. My guess is that it uses 16 bit (vga=788), but I believe that was the default value, wasn't it? If you are feed up with changing the settings try xfree86 (from the DSL repository). You will need to know what type of adapter is in the laptop and well as the amount of memory used.

Let us know!

--EDIT--
I gotta learn to type faster...

Posted by ilias on Sep. 30 2005,12:45

I test your suggestions and nothing.....
I install the XFree86 and nothing....

If you think something please inform me....
I continue the tries until to find a good solution.....

Thank's a lot

Posted by Ronoel on Oct. 05 2005,03:47

Hi Ilias,

I have an Armada 1530 as well and I've tried to get more than 256 colors and nothing!
Using Mandrake 9.0 I got 256 colors. The same using Win98 2nd.
Others distros (Debian, Knoppix, Slack, etc) sometimes I got graphical installation but, after resetting, only command prompt.
No graphical interface.
External monitor works fine.
Today I found the link below (in French) were says 16 bit depth
< http://informatique.kelkoo.fr/b/a/ps_279934/113501.html >
HP page is a s*** because no manual is available.
So now I'm not sure how it works....

Ronoel

Posted by green on Oct. 05 2005,13:34

My 1520 works with Xvesa with 4 bit color only, no icons, no sound, but the GUI is viewable just fine with the 'minimal' desktop theme. However, with only 4 bit color depth, you can not use Dillo and other apps that require more than 4 bit colors. Emelfm and the GUI FTP thing work fine. If I could just get Dillo to work, I would stop complaining.

I tried xfree86 to no avail. I even cheated and found a few Config-4 files on the net and tried to use them. Ah, but the sweet smell of failure prevails.....

Posted by andrewb on Oct. 06 2005,02:50

Have a look at:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=9015 >

It may be that there is a particular (undocumentd) vga mode that will work. I had a lot of trouble with coloured & garbled displays on a libretto, but now it is running grrrrrrrrrrrrreat with DSL! It may be that using the method I'vve described you can get your laptop running without having to revert to xfree.

Posted by green on Oct. 06 2005,15:01

This sounds very interesting. I will give at try when I get some time.
Thank you.

Posted by Tim on Oct. 12 2005,11:39

I have an Armada 1530 too, and I couldn't get framebuffering to work properly. And the laptop is not really VESA compatible (as you've discovered).

The answers to your prayers are here
< clicky >

You either need to amend the XF86Config file provided (as below), or download the one for the cirrus logic graphics board.

Essentially make sure that you remove the 1024x768 mode, and remove all the entries from the "Screen" (or is it display? - it's near the bottom anyway) section that refer to better than 8bpp colour or better than 800x600. (should leave you with only one section - 8bpp, 800x600 and 640x480)

It doesn't matter if the board name is not right - the XF86_SVGA program will work out what board you have by itself.
If you want to see what it can handle use the command XF86_SVGA -probeonly from the command line (ie when X is not running)
and it will tell you what boards XF86_SVGA can talk to, and (how spiffy) what YOUR board is, and what it can handle.

Sorry I can't be absolutely specific, my internet connection is at work, but the laptop is at home.

Anyway, I did as instructed, and X works lovely at 256 colours. Except...
If you open a hi-colour application, like Mozilla Firefox or Dillo, the colours will go funny (I remember this laptop doing odd things with colours in Internet Explorer on Win98 too). Do not worry though. Whichever application is selected (has the focus) will have the right colours, and when you switch away from that application, your desktop will regain the right colours. A bit disconcerting, but certainly more useful than the orange, black and puce colours that kept appearing using Xvesa.

I haven't tried the xmodmap commands (to get the keyboard working), but it looks as though I'll need to - although the rest of my keys work properly (and to the UK layout) - backspace can misbehave. I'm going to play with it tonight.

A couple of addendums....
I can't get the desktop / wallpaper / icons to appear. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I've done a full HD install. Works fine - although GRUB complained the first time I installed - I ignored the error and it went away.

Installed Openoffice (1.1.5) properly (from their tar.gz binary), and although sluggish, it is perfectly usable. Turn off some of the automatic helpers to speed you up - like the assistant or whatever it's called. Nice big swap partition is needed if you'll be doing complicated things though. Just opening Writer barely scratched SWAP, but I expect if you have charts and gizmos and pretty pictures that'll change.

My CNet SinglePoint CardBus ethernet card worked fine. The lights didn't light up (like they do on windows), and there were no silly noises (again unlike windows) to confirm a hotplug event, but I ran the network card setup, and hey presto, spangly network connection (well I could SSH my Fedora box!). I seem to remember, however, if you leave the card in at boot-time, the boot can freeze.

Finally, If you've any idea how I can persuade the X server to accept connections tunneled thru SSH (I know you need the -X switch in SSH) - ie to display X applications from my desktop PC, I'd be most grateful. To be honest, this'd be better in another thread - so I may start one.

Posted by Tim on Oct. 12 2005,11:50

PS. SHould have mentioned mine's upgraded to 48Mb RAM, so you might want to skip openoffice on 32Mb (there'll be a lot more swapping, and associated loss of peformance)

Just wanted to show that it is possible, and feasible, to use Linux just like Windows on this PC, with similar capabilities. (at least in terms of a normal desktop PC). I wanted to get it running again so I could access my documents on the move, and since the office currently has more occupants than PCs, I might use it as a backup PC for the office.

Posted by green on Oct. 12 2005,16:25

This sounds great! I have had no luck so far, but will give this one a spin. There may be hope!

Posted by Ploppy on Aug. 31 2007,12:35

Hi , I have an Aramda 1530 with Cirrus graphics , and it seems to me that since the hardwaredrivers are compiled in to the Linux kernel they simply took out any old rare stuff (the sound card doesnt work either), to make it smaller size.
My question to the DSL team : Why does native MS DOS find the settings
for displaying 800X600 256 colors on almost any graphics adaptor in the world easily whithout any troubles? Is there a wayto build a general driver

Posted by Ploppy on Jan. 25 2009,12:13

Meanwhile I found out that for oldest 16 color graphics comps the best choice seems to be "feather linux" ,at least I can run a few programs and acess the internet , somehow the built in firefox is even rendering down images.
About the sound : Edit ".xinitrc" in your home directory and add the line "sudo modprobe sb i0=0x220 irq=5 dma=1&", so at least we can hear something :laugh:

XMMS isnt working either , but you may listen mp3 by typing to the console "mpg123 /directory/mp3file ".

Posted by Tobiaus on Jan. 25 2009,13:03

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