Indiana: VESA if you need it
Over the past week, as we kept reassembling the distro constructor, image packaging, and slim install, we tested installs on a bunch of laptops. This manual operation let me rehearse how to get things working if the Preview LiveCD doesn’t have a graphics driver that will work. So: here’s the VESA workaround.
- Boot text mode. One of the non-default lines in the GRUB menu should say “text”—pick that one.
- Login as
jack
. User is “jack”, password is “jack”. - Generate a representative
xorg.conf
. Becomeroot
and haveXorg
generate an initial configuration. The root password is “opensolaris”. (Enjoy that `root`’s default shell is ‘bash’ for a bit.)$ su Password:
/usr/X11/bin/Xorg -configure
… This procedure should create
`/jack/xorg.conf.new`.
Change the driver. As
root
, you’ll continue by editing thatxorg.conf.new
file invi
(1). Search for the Device section, and modify the Driver line toDriver “vesa”
Make it go. Stay
root
and hand-launch GNOME.# /usr/X11/bin/xinit /usr/bin/dbus-launch gnome-session –
/usr/X11/bin/Xorg -config /jack/xorg.conf.new :0Launch the installer. Bring up a terminal, and invoke the installer, by typing
install-lan &
.
If your install fails, please file a bug report at defect.opensolaris.org. If it succeeds, but graphics doesn’t work, you can follow the same steps, but you’ll have to edit the GRUB entry. (Roughly, type ‘e’, add “-s” to the end of the line with kernel/unix
, and log in with the new root password you set during install. I haven’t tested this portion—let me know if it fails.)
Last night, I had to do this for my trusty VAIO T370P, but tonight it’s fine:
Please let us know how it goes.
[ T: OpenSolaris Solaris indiana pkg ]