Practical boot sequence modifications

[Zoltan Szecsei]

John Richard Moser wrote:
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> How about some practical booting hacks?  
/snip/
> 
>  - Configure X properly
> 
>    If you install Ubuntu with a Radeon, X will have the 'radeon' driver
> used; this is because it detects that i.e. Radeon 9200 is supported by
> the 'radeon' driver with full 3D acceleration.  If you then pull the
> Radeon and switch to a GeForce 2, X will no longer start because Ubuntu
> does not recognize at boot that 'nv' or 'nvidia' needs to be used.
> 
>    There are 2 solutions here.  First, you could have X reconfigured
> each boot on hardware change, as with LiveCDs.  The other solution is to
> submit a patch to the Xorg project to fall back to Vesa on such
> failures-- a solution that may be more robust, as the user can be
> queried for reconfigurations in a graphical environment.  In either
> case, manual tweaks to xorg.conf will likely be lost.
> 

I'm keen for something like this as well, because I fairly often change 
monitors or cards, for temporary periods.
Is it not possible to have an xorg.conf followed by (possibly a series 
of) xorg.conf.nv xorg.conf.mylcdtv etc etc? Then, at boot, if the 
previous boot had different HW sensed, a menu could be thrown up and, if 
no action is taken, the VESA route be followed.

As far as ubuntu (also SuSE 9.3 and surely others) boot is concerned, it 
would be nice  to be able to keep the bootlog going at the same 
resolution as the BIOS messages. I have a very fussy 30" LCDTV that 
shows the BIOS messages but not the boot messages, but then is OK with 
the logon splashscreen and X. I haven't fiddled much, but I am guessing 
the boot process happens at something like 800x600 and the change in 
refresh rate is not picked up by the LCDTV, so it does not sync with it. 
This has me somewhat puzzled but I have to confess that prior to this 
posting I have not fiddled enough to narrow down the problem area.

[My 2c on the boot process for xorg.]

Regards & have a great new year,
Zoltan


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