[SOLVED - Finally] Remastering defaults to onboard VGA

[wharfhouse]

Update...

That didn't work and was definitely worse!!!  Making the changes in PCC ( Xfdrake) on the first boot I could see it had defaulted to the S3 Unichrome just as the LiveCD did, and for a moment I thought changing the settings to the NVidia and saving the settings in the persistence bit was going to work.  All I got was a distorted grey square on the screen during booting then blackness and no response to anything.  And yes this was booting into persistence before you ask.  Performing a REISUB to reboot to standard boot (no persistence) and it would boot "normally" (if that's the right word so to speak!).

I really think we shouldn't waste any more time on this because I'm sure we (you  ) must have tried everything possible, and just accept that with this particular BIOS (Award v6.00PG) we can't get PCLOS to do what we want on the VGA; and certainly no-one else has chipped in with any bright ideas (we must have stumped them all! ).
What do you think? 

[Just17]

To get this straight in my mind again .......  is it that you have the monitor plugged into the Nvidia card and it is loading the S3 driver and causing the problem?

If so loading the Nvidia driver should fix it .....  and I had hoped that as the xorg would be written that it would be used on reboot.

I believe I recall a situation where you might have to log out and back in again to get the 'persistent' driver to be used.

If that is the case then there would appear to be a small bug someplace preventing it from being loaded on first log in.

You might check that log out/in thing to see if you get the same result ......  after booting in Persistent mode.

if that is the case, maybe some of the devs could have a look to see if the bug can be located .....

[wharfhouse]

Yep, my monitor is plugged into the Nvidia card, nothing connected to the on-board S3, with just the Nouveau driver being used for this card... anything related to S3 Unichrome deleted (via Synaptic).

On this basis, the iso file was remastered and either written to a CD (LiveCD) or installed onto a memory stick (LiveUSB).  As I said above, if I now boot into persistent mode on the LiveUSB I lose VGA output so logging out and back in is not an option... I would have to overwrite the iso file back onto it and start again, and then, to "log out" and in again I would have to do it blindly as the pop-up dialog boxes don't appear; but I could work that one out on the host system first!

if that is the case, maybe some of the devs could have a look to see if the bug can be located .....

You're out of my comfort zone now! 

[Just17]

Try    Ctrl,Alt & F7, & Ctrl,Alt & F8 & Ctrl,Alt & F9   in sequence to see if the Nvidia screen is displayed after log in.

Normally F7 would show the boot lines, F8 the current display so maybe F9 would show what Nvidia is displaying ........   only guessing here as I have not come across this problem ......

Maybe someone with better knowledge of this aspect would comment .....  as I might well be very very wrong 

[wharfhouse]

Just18... an update (and some progress!) 

Tried what you suggested above, F7-9, couldn't do anything useful there, so I reinstalled the iso file onto the LiveUSB partition, got to my half desktop blindly, made changes in PCC to NVidia etc. BUT, rather than reboot, I logged out and back in as you suggested... yeah a proper desktop again!

Call it intuition but I chanced logging out and back in as root, going to Synaptic and looked up S3 Unichrome... guess what... it was there!   So it didn't show up as a "user" in Synaptic but it was there in root! There must be two databases for Synaptic!  That led me to go back to the host OS and uninstall S3 in root there as well, produce a new iso then an updated LiveUSB.  I really thought I was onto a winner here, booted into the LiveUSB and... no difference!

Well where the hell is it getting its driver from   So I did a file search for all things S3 and came up with a kernel module s3fb.ko.gz    deleted!  Then search on Unichrome and came up with 5 unichrome files   deleted!  Then viafb and that came up with viafb.ko.gz kernel module   deleted!

That's got to do the trick hasn't it?  Reboot... no way!!! still the same, S3 Unichrome driver as default according to Xfdrake in PCC!  What the hell

Conclusion... confirmed everything works properly when the Unichrome driver is uninstalled, but it keeps being pulled back in... FROM SOMEWHERE! So, if anybody out there has a clue where/how I can stop this, I would be ever so grateful

[Just17]

There are three   x11-driver-video-   packages relating to S3 installed here.

Maybe uninstalling those and remastering would do it?

Not sure if you have this done already .....

[Neal ManBear]

Search for any dkms packages related to your unichrome driver and remove them.     

[wharfhouse]

Hi Neal & Just18!

Guess what?  SOLVED! Finally!

Just18 you are quite correct, there are 3 S3 packages to uninstall and Neal I checked for any DKMS packages (checked ALL of them listed in Synaptic actually) but there was only one for NVidia and two other generic ones, nothing for Unichrome.  BUT... it made me have a look in the X11 folder for any packages that might give a clue... nothing.  But I did open up xorg.conf file for what it's worth... and there it was!  DRIVER: "OPENCHROME"! What is this?  Oh it's only the Linux Openchrome Project for Via Unichrome chipsets!!! Gotcha!  Uninstalled that as user AND root... problem solved!

Wow!  After all this time and 800 odd views by others there are some lessons to be learned here which may help others:

1)  Removing a video driver as a user DOES NOT REMOVE IT IN THE ROOT DIRECTORY and has to be done in root.  Although I can see the logic of this if you were running a network, not really appropriate in a stand-alone desktop.  Perhaps there should be two variations: Linux-DT & Linux-NT.

2) Removing ANY video driver also removes Task-X11.  Going into PCC > Configure VGA to change a driver requires Task-X11 to do that task and will download it automatically before the usual options window comes up.  Downloading Task-X11 ALSO PULLS IN ALL OTHER VIDEO DRIVERS AS WELL BRINGING YOU BACK TO SQUARE ONE!  Now I think that's wrong and is a real pain in the a*** and should be changed, because that's taking control/choice away from the user.

3) This must be a common problem therefore with anyone with disabled on-board VGA and somewhat surprised this hasn't been an major issue before I came along.

So there we are.  As I type this I'm working off the LiveUSB now... proof it's all up & running; so all I've got to do that's left is to make the relative changes on the host system, produce an updated iso file, burn that to a CD, and if that's successful (and I have no doubts on that), then I can well & truly mark this thread as "solved".

Thanks to Neal for the tip... just that thought pattern to give a moments inspiration (90% perspiration!), and for Just18 who kept by my side in my weaker moments of giving up!

All the very best to all of you 

[Neal ManBear]

Remove as user? You can't remove a package as user. Remove with Synaptic, i.e. as root.     

[wharfhouse]

Hi Neal & All! 

Did my excitement sound gibberish?    Let me explain... yes uninstalling ALWAYS through Synaptic, the difference being removing a video driver in Synaptic as a "user" using root privileges is still there (presumably under an alternate directory) when you log-out and back in as Root and open up Synaptic.  I forgot to mention in my ramblings above that ordinary applications removed as a user does indeed uninstall from both directories, but for some reason not video drivers and I suspect other important files as well... not that I wish to experiment.  I've had enough trouble learning about this idiosyncrasy!

Now then, I can confirm the problem is well and truly solved as I'm now typing this from the newest remastered LIVECD... Perfect!!!

One other point I forgot to mention... is the value of using a LiveUSB FOR TESTING PURPOSES which of course as you know I've been doing with all this thanks to Just18.  What a superb idea whoever came up with this concept of using "persistence" so you can play around and tweak all you like...  Brilliant!

So, once more, thanks to all and I will finally mark this thread as [Solved] 

All the best,

Wharfhouse

[Just17]

Now then, I can confirm the problem is well and truly solved as I'm now typing this from the newest remastered LIVECD... Perfect!!!

Excellent!

Congrats on using your own persistence to get to the bottom of the problem 

[Neal ManBear]

wharfhouse,     
Just18 is the one to thank for our livusb creator and for persistence. He did a great job on it, didn't he?     

[ThirdOfSix]

I would like to thank all involved for this thread.

I will read it numerous times as it seems to hint at the reasons behind some anomalies that I have seen with some of my systems in the past.

One thing that I would like to ask even though it may not be relevant. During all these reboots and trials, did you always do cold boots?

There are things that happen on some of my machines that hint at a relationship between BIOS functions and OS functions that behave totally different if I just do a restart rather than a full cold boot. I have yet to figure out what information is carried over during a warm boot and where it is kept.

[wharfhouse]

Hi ThirdOfSix!

I did wonder if anyone else has ever had this problem, but FWIW all my rebooting to change VGA etc was done warm i.e. "restart" from the dialog box, 'though to see immediate effect it was better to simply log-out then back in again. 

Good luck!