The issue tracker has been moved https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archiso/-/issues
FS#11903 - boot cd install sequence unusable: horribly wide console font or broken framebuffer console
Attached to Project:
Release Engineering
Opened by Bill Powell (troubador) - Monday, 27 October 2008, 17:42 GMT
Last edited by Dieter Plaetinck (Dieter_be) - Tuesday, 09 March 2010, 20:09 GMT
Opened by Bill Powell (troubador) - Monday, 27 October 2008, 17:42 GMT
Last edited by Dieter Plaetinck (Dieter_be) - Tuesday, 09 March 2010, 20:09 GMT
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DetailsDescription:
The boot CD doesn't work, because the console font appears horribly wide. Though the letters are so wide, Arch acts as if they're normal size, resulting in lines that wrap and push the second half of the screen's information down below the bottom of the monitor. The installation scripts are thus practically unusable. Strangely, the _initial_ screen of the boot CD (the blue background with your first screen of choices) comes up fine. But once you go into the real boot sequence, this horrible font problem comes. I have used this Overlord core ISO before on another (newer) computer, with no trouble. I have also tested this computer with the 2008-03 ftp ISO, but had exactly the same problem. This is an old computer: a Pentium III 450 Mhz with an old AGP video card. However, it's currently running Slackware 11 just fine, and a Ubuntu live CD worked fine too. Even with the screen in this state, I managed to run the script that installs all the core packages, and also get grub installed. When I rebooted to my newly installed Arch, I GOT THE SAME PROBLEM. So there is something seriously wrong with the console font handling here, or else something strange toxic interaction between this particular video card and Arch. Or maybe something with kernel 2.6; I know that the Slack 11 I have now is 2.4. I have tweaked the kernel line in grub and tried the framebuffer console (vga=773, vga=769. etc.). When I boot this way, I just get green boxes; no characters at all. I have also tried vbeprobe and testvbe in grub. vbeprobe returns a "not found" for every mode I've tried, e.g., 773 and 769. When I testvbe 773 and 769, I get a rainbow screen of unblinking lines ... don't know what this means, if anything. I'd really like to get Arch on this computer, so please tell me if there's any diagnostic I can run. If I could get the network installed, I might be able to install X and see what happened then. But I'd much rather fix this first. I've never seen this problem; the one thing every install CD can usually do is give you text on a console. Thanks! Additional info: * package version(s) * config and/or log files etc. Steps to reproduce: |
This task depends upon
Closed by Dieter Plaetinck (Dieter_be)
Tuesday, 09 March 2010, 20:09 GMT
Reason for closing: No response
Additional comments about closing: no response after more then a year
Tuesday, 09 March 2010, 20:09 GMT
Reason for closing: No response
Additional comments about closing: no response after more then a year
All I know offhand about the hardware is that it's some kind of AGP video card.
The problem is that I switched the computer back to Slackware. Would dmesg under a different distro still be helpful? I suppose the hardware would be the same. So I will get the dmesg output and attach it here. Thanks again!
I am also on an older PC (Pentium III/700), with an NVIDIA TNT2 card (NV5). I can post more information on the hardware if requested.
Is there maybe any way to try different font console settings at the command line prompt?
I am attaching some quick photos for my case. I should also note that i did notice the same problem during the Xubuntu 8.10 installation bootup sequence, so the problem might not be Arch specific..
Please let me know if you need any more info!
By the way I have successfully tested archlinux-2009.02-RC1-ftp-i686.iso in an old PIII with an integrated Aladdin TNT2 (NV5, rev 20) 10de:00a0; boot and setup ran fine in 80x25 mode.
Any other suggestions are welcome! I might try downloading an older Arch version, see if it persists..