[SPARCbook] Video Problems on Ultrabook

[Sunder]

I'd highly suggest upgrading to Solaris 8 - if you can.  Try to see if you
can buy a copy off ebay or elsewhere - I don't think Sun has the ISO's for
8 online anymore - and I doubt that 9 would work.  

>From what I recall (don't have a ubook anymore) Solaris 8 has the drivers
for the ultrabook display built in (or at least it's compatible with that
chip.)  But it's not an easy process - you'll need to reflash the OBP and
once you do, your hard drive must be over 8gb.  But these are normal 2.5"
IDE disks, so it might not be so bad.

It's normal for the display to work in text mode but not in graphics mode
- up until you run OpenWindows, I believe it's using the routines in the
OBP which emulate a text terminal, but once you switch to OpenWin or CDE
for that matter, X needs a proper driver.

You could also try to download XFree-86 - or X11 and compile it - if it
has the right support for that chip - but it's ugly and it still might not
properly work...


It's also possible that you have multiple desktops enabled too:

IE: LCD is one display, and CRT is a 2nd display.  Would explain seeing
the mouse pointer move around, but no desktop..  Do you see a normal
desktop pattern or garbage?  If you see a desktop pattern, try to move the
mouse all the way left or all the way right.

If it seems to disappear for a while, it may be on (the other?) display.  
i.e. move it all the way left and notice how long it takes, and keep
pushing the mouse left. Then, try to go back right.  If it shows up
immediately, there's no hidden area to the left.  If it takes you a while
to push it back right, there's a desktop to the left...


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--------_sunder_ at _sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Michael Thompson wrote:

> I have an 200 MHz Ultrabook, now with vanilla Solaris 6 installed in the 12
> GB disk. I haven't installed any of the Tadpole/RDI packages or patches yet.
> 
> The LCD display works fine on power up and during the first part of boot.
> As soon as Openwindows comes up the LCD is unreadable.
> 
> I plugged a Sony/Sun 19" monitor on the external video connector. I tried
> 1152-mon and 1024-mon and in either case the CRT is unreadable. If I do a
> 1152-mon and boot Solaris I can see and move the mouse pointer but the
> remainder of the display is unreadable.
> 
> The system has the Radeon video chip, not the Creator-3D.