I have an Intel Mach 4.2 install of OpenStep that works just fine, but I would like to be able to reset the display driver to the basic VGA (640X480 black and white) from the command prompt when I have issues or an incompatibility with my hardware and software driver.
is this possible from Single User Mode (-s)?
If I test with any other driver and it doesn't work (boots fine, but goes black when GUI starts). My only option now is to reimage my harddrive with a that basic video driver on it and start over.
Hope this makes sense. Thanks for everyones time.
The sure-fire way is to enter the following at the 'Boot:' prompt:
config=Default
That will cause the system to boot with the default drivers (including the 'Default VGA' driver)
You could try messing with the Instance0.table files too (e.g. /private/Drivers/i386/VMWareFB.config/Instance0.table), but the 'config=Default' method is the less error-prone method.
Thanks! Does this write any changes or is it a one time thing?
It causes the system to use the default configuration until you reboot again.
Think of it as 'safe mode', if you will.
Works great!! Thanks so much.
I have one more question. All of my Openstep hardware is running SCSI drives. Do you know if its possible to run Openstep on a basic IDE drive and if so where would I make my changes so it looks for an IDE?
Get your hands on the 'Primary/Secondary (Dual) EIDE/ATAPI' driver (
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/OPENSTEP/Drivers/Third_Party/i386/other/EIDE-4.031.tgz)
This is also available on the beta drivers disk (
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/OPENSTEP/Floppy_Images/)
You need to be aware of the 4GB partition limit, and the fact that BuildDisk.app probably won't be able to do anything with EIDE disks without some sort of custom entries in /etc/disktab.
You could, if your BSD skills are up to it, use /usr/etc/disk and /usr/etc/newfs, but only if you're *really* comfortable with disk labels.
Thanks my friend! Probably a bit more than I can chew but that gives me a roadmap of how to do it. Since I have the SCSI 4G image I can throw that down on an IDE drive and play with the config.
Thanks again for your time and support!