TC 3.8.3, MC 3.8.4, ThinkPad 600e, problem with Neomagic MagicGraph256ZX

[El Indignado]

Hello,
I am new to this Forum and new to Linux, so please have mercy with me.
I have a ThinkPad 600e with Neomagic MagicGraph256ZX graphics chip which I would like to use as an Internet terminal with Linux.
I stumbled upon TC and Wow!  thats exactly what I imagined, an always clean system booting from CD with Firefox extension.
But then: PROBLEM!

When I boot TC 3.8.3 from CD, I do get the TC Desktop and all is well, but the colors are wrong: the desktop is green instead of blue and photos are almost unrecognisable.
If I load the xorg 7.5 extension then to get the neomagic driver and reboot with restore, I do not even get the desktop, the screen stays black.
Booting with vga=xxx does not help either, that only changes the resolution, the colors stay bad.
Booting MC 3.8.4 from CD  always leads to a black screen, no matter which boot option I choose.
I have searched Google and the TC Forum already and learned that the NeoMagic chip is a bit of a troublemaker, but havent found a solution for my problem.
Using TC 2.6.11 instead as someone suggested didnt work either.

As I am understanding almost nothing of Linux, I would be very glad to get some help. Perhaps someone here has solved this problem already.

Thank you in advance,
Martin

Update: problem exists also with TC 4.0 

[Juanito]

The first thing I'd suggest to try is Xorg-7.6 with tc-4.x - this works without configuration on two machines with intel graphics I have, where Xorg-7.5 and Xorg-7.4 both required a configuration file.

If Xorg-7.6 doesn't work "confless", you're going to need to google on your graphics chipset name and "xorg.conf" to get something suitable.

[roberts]

Many older laptops with neomagic worked well with framebuffer.
Using framebuffer with Tiny Core is easy. Give it a try. See FAQ.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#framebuffer.

[oldgit485]

Hi Martin,
I have two 600es that have been working beautifully up to 3.8.4,I am struggling with 4.0 but hopefully I will get it sorted.
here are the settings I have used for a frugal hdd install with persistent home and opt.
1.Press F1 as the machine boots up,this will take you into the bios, select config. then Quick Boot and select Disable, select OK then Exit,then Restart.

2.Boot TC again, go into control panel,select vesa and select 15 for the display enter,select 5 for the mouse (trackpoint) enter

3.using your favourite editor edit either the 4th line of /mnt/hda1/boot/grub/menu.lst to look like this :
kernel /boot/bzImage quiet tinycore
vga=791 host=xxx  tce=hda1  opt=hda1 blacklist=snd_cs46xx
IMPORTANT should all be on one line
or if you use Multicore the extlinux.conf file  in extlinux

4.Download  alsa.tcz, xmms .tcz, depmod  to play MP3s/sound
fluff.tcx wireless tools.tcz, wpa supplicant.tcz,wifi.tcz getFlash10.tcz chromium .tcz,( I use a Linksys wireless pcmcia card)
 5.Having rebooted after editing menu.lst or extlinux.conf do the following:

type alsamixer at the command line, you should get a graphical display, if you repeatedly press up arrow the Master bar on the left will go up to 100 if there is mm at the bottom it is muted,press m to unmute,do the same with PCM hit  escape.
type sudo su then enter to use root,type alsactl store this will create a file in etc called asound.state which holds the alsamixer settings.

6,Time to edit a couple of files. (Note the leading.)

A. opt/.filetool.lst: add the following line

 etc/asound.state      ( saves settings in asound.state )     

B , opt/bootlocal.sh: add the following lines

/bin/sleep 5                               ( time delay I think)
alsactl restore                            (      restores the sound settings in the  file etc/asound.state)
 
(When using persistent home and opt you can remove any mention of /opt  except for opt/.filetool.lst and opt/.xfile.lst
from /opt/.filetool.lst and also any mention of home in the same file.)

7.start xmms click on the D ofOAIDU it will double the size of the display,click on squiggle top left of xmms,then options,preferences,click on Output plugin, select alsa 1.2.11,click on configure,Click on right hand box of Audio device and select CS4239(hw:0,0), click on use software volume control.mixer card should say CS4239 Mixer PCM,click OK,click apply on next panel and then OK.
Reboot,Mount the drive that your MP3s are on
start XMMS, click on the right hand end blue button, type /mnt, double click  select mnt/ and you should see your MP3 folder, select song and hit play,if there is no sound but the graphic equalizer is moving about ,either hit Fn and page up  to increase volume or check alsamixer again, unmute and increase vol to 100,press escape then run alsactl store again.
Oh nearly forgot run the browser set up home page etc and then run getflash 10 youtube is pretty poor on these machines  but they are 10yrs old
Good luck,   oldgit (any probs just ask)
Hope it works for you

[El Indignado]

And here we go! Its 2 oclock in the morning and it finally works! It was the framebuffer and I am writing this in a browser window with the RIGHT colors! Xorg is not necessary.
Thank you so much for your help Robert and please everybody here keep on working on tinycore.
Cheers,
Martin, happy :-))))

update regarding oldgit485: I just followed the FAQ instruction to boot with framebuffer, nothing more, and everything is fine.

[Rich]

Hi oldgit485
About   max_loop=   the FAQ states:

Note that this bootcode should not be used with 3.x.

and probably not 4.x either.

[oldgit485]

Thanks Rich I was unaware of that I'm by no means good at this , just trying to help after spending hours scratching my head in fact I seem to have screwed up two 40 gig 2.5" hdd trying to upgrade to multicore 4.0 they will accept data but will not boot ,think I may have screwed MBR
Just going  to remove max_loop now
rgds oldgit

[Rich]

Hi oldgit485
Not a problem. Sharing your experience about the 600e may help others who read this thread later.
Due to the pace Tinycore is evolving at, it can be difficult to keep up with the changes. I sometimes
wonder whether roberts is a real person or just a highly advanced computer running 24/7 making
improvements to Tinycore. 

[wuxmedia]

Hi, new here, new to linux so deep breath...

I'd like to bump this topic, because i'm having the same problem with my 380XD i have read the FAQ, got up to where the Xfbdev.tcz d/ls and installs (presumably)

It isn't persistent, i have to make the 'tce' directory, before i can install Xfbdev( i would love to install properly, but i need to see what i'm doing)

my prob is when i tap 'xsetup.sh'

'file not found' 8(
a quick 'find *.sh' reveals no xsetup, not on the CD either... WTF am i doing wrong...
could you point me to an install on CLi only

booting with 'xsetup' as a cheatcode just ends with a cli prompt...

DSL worked fine with Xfbdev, please tell me why isn't installed as standard?

Thanks in advance

BTW the way your capchas are horrible 8(