I have a couple of older machines kicking around that I'm trying to revive, a 2008 Dell desktop and a Lenovo laptop. I installed Gentoo and ended up with the same problem on both machines...
* During the install process, the text console works OK. * After the install, it starts off fine with the LILO boot menu. * After it boots, there is no text at all on the text console. * After much dicking around, I've managed to get my desktop to ssh into the old Dell after it boots. It appears to be fully functional, and I can do just about anything via ssh. Still no text on the monitor. * I have not gotten anywhere near installing X. Here's what make menuconfig > Device Drivers > Graphics support shows on the Dell d530. Any ideas about text console support? <*> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support) ---> | | -*- VGA Arbitration | | (16) Maximum number of GPUs | | [ ] Laptop Hybrid Graphics - GPU switching support | | <*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI suppor| | ARM devices ---- | | < > ATI Radeon | | < > AMD GPU | | < > Nouveau (NVIDIA) cards | | <*> Intel 8xx/9xx/G3x/G4x/HD Graphics | | () Force probe driver for selected new Intel hardware | | [*] Enable capturing GPU state following a hang | | [*] Compress GPU error state | | [*] Always enable userptr support | | [ ] Enable Intel GVT-g graphics virtualization host support | | < > Virtual GEM provider | | < > Virtual KMS (EXPERIMENTAL) | | < > DRM driver for VMware Virtual GPU | | < > Intel GMA500/600/3600/3650 KMS Framebuffer | | < > DisplayLink | | < > AST server chips | | < > Matrox G200 | | < > QXL virtual GPU | | Display Panels ---> | | Display Interface Bridges ---> | | < > ETNAVIV (DRM support for Vivante GPU IP cores) | | < > DRM Support for bochs dispi vga interface (qemu stdvga) | | < > Cirrus driver for QEMU emulated device | | < > GM12U320 driver for USB projectors | | < > Simple framebuffer driver | | < > Virtual Box Graphics Card | | < > GUD USB Display | | [ ] Enable legacy drivers (DANGEROUS) ---- | | Frame buffer Devices ---> | | Backlight & LCD device support ---> | | Console display driver support ---> -- Walter Dnes <waltd...@waltdnes.org> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications