[Sheflug] Weird Consoles

[James Wallbank <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

Yes, another problem has reared its ugly head today...

I've just done two Mandrake 8.2 installs on Compaq DeskPro's and
everything seemed to go fine (except for the screwy XF86Config/S3Virge
problem which is a characteristic of the Compaq graphics cards - I know
about this, and how to solve it - by selecting Other/Unlisted card, then
specifying the S3V server, rather than letting the installer identify
the card for itself).

Anyway, here's the weird thing. Although X works fine, the mingetty
terminals (ie the text only terminals on Alt-F1-F6) wrap in a really
strange way. The cursor is in the *correct* place on the screen, while
the letters you type appear in the wrong place, translated about 70
characters to the right.

As you type, if you follow the cursor, everything is normal, except the
actual words you type end up somewhere over the right-hand side of the
screen, then wrap around (if you type a long line) to position zero
again, and carry on (but they don't line feed until you press return).

During the boot sequence the dmesg text scrolls up the screen absolutely
correctly... without the weird wrapping - so clearly it's not a
fundamental hardware issue, but some kind of software glitch once the
system goes multi-user.

Anyway, I haven't explained this too well, but I have a photo of it if
you're interested (I won't post it to the list, though - so ask me if
you want it!).

Tony at Access Space said that he thinks it's some kind of memory
location error with the display...but I'm not so sure. Have you any
thoughts? Have you seen anything like this before?

Here's the REALLY WEIRD bit. At Access Space we've installed the same
distro on six identical machines to these two problem boxes, and this
phenomenon hasn't occurred...

Please, any ideas?

Thanks,

James (mystified)
-- 
James Wallbank
Redundant Technology Initiative
Access Space, 1 Sidney Street,Sheffield S1 4RG UK
T: +44 (0)114 2495522
F: +44 (0)114 2495533
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