No display on via laptop

[senor_smile]

I just installed Debian Linux for the first time in my life. Actually, this is the first exposure I've ever had to any unix system entirely. It went throught the entire install fine. Then, when it tried to boot it had a bunch of text scroll by loading this and that, and then the screen went blank. I plugged the laptop into a CRT monitor at work and I could see the display. I don't have a monitor at home though. How can I fix this?

[Vergil83]

What type of labtop do you have? Do you have (or can you get) the manual to see if they have the screen specs (horizontal and vertical syncs)?

[senor_smile]

I'm unable to find any such specs or any manuals for that matter. It didn't come with any. It's a Fry's(Great Quality MX-3203) with the via chipset. It has a max of 1024x768 and a screen refresh rate of 60 HZ.

[bidi]

You can try some of the stuff this guy says here:
http://dangandhi.tripod.com/GQ3203/

Try googling and going to www.tuxmobile.org.

[senor_smile]

presumably, I have to try to set some things different to try to get it to display, but how would I do this if every time the GUI initializes, the screen goes blank and I can't see anything?

[oz]

Maybe you can boot to a different run level to make the changes:

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/212

...or perhaps you can chroot into your install to make any changes.

[bidi]

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/212

That article is kind of misleading. Debian doesn't use run levels like most people think... By default, it boots into run level 2, which should be pure CLI but in reality it's configured with X and all that mambo jabo. If you want to do system maintenace you need to use the second boot entry (it's the same as first but says "recovery mode" or something at the end). This is the entry on GRUB, so as soon as you turn on your computer what for it, it's only a 5 second time delay.

[senor_smile]

Now that I've figured out how to reach a command prompt, I still am unable to find out how to modify the vga settings for the gui to try any different settings. How can I from the command prompt make changes to the display settings?

[deanlinkous]

To kill the display and get to a command prompt you can use the
ctrl+alt+backspace keys to drop to a command line. You may need to repeat that a few times before it kills it. Or you should be able to use the alt+function keys to switch to a different console.

Once there you can adjust X in a few different ways.
if running sarge
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
if running etch or sid
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

You could also edit the file yourself
running sarge
nano /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
running etch
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

There are also utilities you can run but I would start with reconfiguriung the packages myself.

[senor_smile]

Thanks to everyone for all the help so far. I really want to try linux out, but so far have not been able to. I went through the reconfiguration process and answered all the questions as best as I could, but still I get no monitor after the initial text boot screen.