Hello Gurus,

Here was my strategy for installing FC4 on my Compaq nx6110 laptop:

1. resize the current ntfs partition (which was 100% of the disk) to allow for the FC4 OS. For this I used the Knoppix live cd and did it with QTparted.
2. install FC4 from the 4 cd's I had made from the iso's.

When I tried to boot with the Knoppix live cd, it would go through all the text boot stuff then never load the gui and just hang with a blank screen. I figured out it was a framebuffer problem and when I used the "fb1280x1024" option it worked fine. Then I proceeded to resize my ntfs partition.

When I tried to boot from disk 1 of the FC4 OS, I had the same problem....no gui, so I went ahead and installed using "linux text". Now when I try to boot my FC4 OS I can't get to the gui, it will just hang with a blank screen. So I figured it was the framebuffer issue again...after some digging on the net I found out that the option "vga=794" is that same as setting the framebuffer to 1280x1024, which worked for me in Knoppix, but it didn't...what am I doing wrong?

Here is how I add the vga option...I press 'e' to edit the kernel command and then just put "vga=794" at then end of it and push 'b' to boot from it, but it's still not loading the gui...are there any other options I can try?

After booting up a few minutes ago and watching the text shoot up the screen then go blank, yet again, I get the inclination to log in with my root account and password then I see HD activity again but nothing still on the screen....so I go over to a CRT and plug it in and press the function to go to an external monitor on my laptop and it works! Then I press the function again to go back to my LCD and that works! So now I can run the gui on my laptop only after switching to an external CRT then back to my LCD!?!?!

To me it seems like your display adapter does not reset itself automatically or something. I suppose switching to an external monitor makes it to reset itself, and when you switch back to LCD you can see the picture on screen. I'd check BIOS settings first. You might find something related to Display adapter or LCD. Don't be fooled by the terms used in BIOS settings. They differ from those used in Linux or any other OS.

BTW. Have you already tried just tapping the display switch button a couple of times without having an external monitor connected? If it's simply a dumb switch then you should be able to get picture to your LCD that way.

Thanks for your reply.

I have browsed the Bios a few times and there is no reference to any display settings. The display change button does nothing without a monitor plugged into it. I've also tried pushing the little button that gets depressed when the lid is closed and that does nothing. Am starting to lose hope that I can get FC4 running on this laptop. The funny thing is, Knoppix works fine once I added the vga=794 option to the kernel and that option doesn't enable FC4 to work...

try replacing vga=794 with vga=normal and see if that works.

tried that....nothing.