problems installing ubuntu (and other linux) on BenQ Joybook

Asked by hyisraeli

Since being given this BenQ Joybook A53 over a year ago, it gave me no joy since no linux would install on it. I tried debian, tried ubuntu, even tried gentoo. It would always get stuck trying to change the graphics mode I think. I tried to figure out exactly where in the install script it hung, and thought it was in the framebuffer stuff, but still disabling the framebuffer didn't help. I gave up and ran ubuntu inside vmware sitting on windoze xp.

Today I decided to try again, this time using ubuntu 9.01 . Same problem -- hangs right after i tell it to install. I googled, and found someone who said to try using nohz=off in the boot script. Okay, I tried that, and it worked! Installed. Now every time I boot up, though, I have to tell grub also to do nohz=off. I'm sure i can just edit the grub file somewhere in /etc, I'll get around to finding that soon.

The thing that's troublesome right now is that the video mode is wrong. It's not detecting the monitor, and only giving me a 800x600 resolution, which makes everything big and fuzzy, and fat (since the monitor is actually widescreen). Anybody know how to teach it to use the correct resolution, please?

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#1

Have you tried the netbook remix? Are you MD5 testing the ISO files you download?

You may get a better install with the alternative installer which uses a text based install.

Ubuntu and Debian are very similar but not the same, have you tried SUSE or Mandriva or Fedora as they use rpm instead of deb so will be more different (couldnt think of a better way to put it)

If you get a boot, can you provide the output of:

lspci | grep -i vga

Thanks

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#2

Seems to use a

SiS M672

chipset. Looks like you will be using the vesa driver until SiS get smart: Here is a way to get 1024x768

http://ncc-1701a.homelinux.net/~linux-sis/index.php?page=VesaDriver

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