Install using vesa fails with ATI X700

[Patrick]

On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 09:22 -0500, Adam Jackson wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-02-02 at 03:23 +0100, Patrick wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Just installed F7T1 i386 on my Acer 4005 x86_64 laptop on a separate
> > partition I had reserved for F7T1. This laptop has an ATI X700 video
> > chipset. On both FC6 and F7T1 anaconda correctly detects the ATI X700
> > but when it starts X the output gets sent to the external monitor or
> > TV-out port so I only get a black screen. On FC6 I could specify vesa as
> > a boot option which then worked fine. However, F7T1 does understand it
> > needs to use vesa but it fails to start X and it falls back to text
> > mode.
> > 
> > Anyone had similar experiences with using vesa?
> 
> Why you would do this when the X700 is supported by the radeon driver, I
> do not know.

Because the output of the screen does not get directed to the laptop
screen but to one of the other output ports (external screen, tv-out).
So I get a black laptop screen. I chatted about this quite some time
back with Mike Harris and iirc he was aware of the issue (this issue is
also in FC6).

After installation I also need to add the following line to xorg.conf or
else output ports get switched and I get another black laptop screen (at
least that was the explanation I read somewhere online):

Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS,NONE"

Which afaict forces the driver to use the first screen (aka the laptop
screen).

> The vesa driver in F7t1 ought to include all the latest fixes.  If you
> can scrape /tmp/ramfs/X.log off the machine at install time after the
> text mode fallback that would probably tell you why it failed.

I'll give it a try. Do you have any tips for me how I can save that
file? Is it at that time already possible to copy the file to a usb
stick or ftp the file to another host?

Regards,
Patrick