linux live cd with matrox drivers

[VJ]

Hello,

I sometimes boot using a Linux live CD to make imags of my harddisks (with partimage). My current live CD is an older Knoppix, which does not have drivers for my Matrox Parhelia included.

Is there a linux live distribution that includes matrox drivers?


Jörg

[schmosef]

I use a GParted live CD for all my partition mangement these days.

In fact, I used it to move one of my employee's dev installations onto a bigger hard drive just last Friday.

My employee has a Matrox PCIe card (I think it's P650 based).

The latest release of GParted (3.3-6) didn't work with the matrox card. I checked the GParted forums and it seems that there's a known issue with automatic VESA card detection. They recently changed their distro and I guess they haven't shaken out all the compatibility issues yet.

I ended up using an older version (3.3-0), which I'd used before, and it worked without a problem.

I recommend it.

[Haig]

I have Suse 10.0 live & it doesn't have any P drivers.

[VJ]

I use a GParted live CD for all my partition mangement these days.

In fact, I used it to move one of my employee's dev installations onto a bigger hard drive just last Friday.

My employee has a Matrox PCIe card (I think it's P650 based).

The latest release of GParted (3.3-6) didn't work with the matrox card. I checked the GParted forums and it seems that there's a known issue with automatic VESA card detection. They recently changed their distro and I guess they haven't shaken out all the compatibility issues yet.

I ended up using an older version (3.3-0), which I'd used before, and it worked without a problem.

I recommend it.

Does it address the videocard as a VESA, or does it have true Matrox drivers? I currently use a Knoppix CD, and it also runs VESA; but for some reason I cannot get a resolution higher than 800x600 (which is quite low).
I will check the documentation to see if I find anything about it.

The distribution needs to have support for: Parhelia, Adaptec AIC79xx (U320 SCSI), Texas Instruments OHCI IEEE (Firewire 800). It also needs PartImage; it would be nice if it could write to NTFS partitions, but this is not a requirement.

I have Suse 10.0 live & it doesn't have any P drivers.

Another option could be to make my own live CD, but what is the procedure to add drivers to a live CD and make a new live CD like this?


Jörg

[schmosef]

Just try it. It's a 30MB download. I was able to get 1024x768 no problem. I didn't try for higher.

[VJ]

Thanks, I'll give it a go!


Jörg

[Haig]

Another option could be to make my own live CD, but what is the procedure to add drivers to a live CD and make a new live CD like this?

Perhaps this could help:

http://ibuild.livecd.net/

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_build_a_LiveCD_from_scratch

[VJ]

The latest release of GParted (3.3-6) didn't work with the matrox card. I checked the GParted forums and it seems that there's a known issue with automatic VESA card detection. They recently changed their distro and I guess they haven't shaken out all the compatibility issues yet.

Had the same issue with 3.4-1: it tried to start X-windows, but came back to the prompt. It didn't matter whether I chose MGA or VESA, nor what resolution I set.

Have now downloaded both 3.4-2 (released yesterday) and 3.3-0.


Jörg

[schmosef]

They have an active forum there. If you post a request for advice, I'm sure someone will help you.

[VJ]

Version 3.4-2 appears to work, but I'm getting a signal out of range error from my monitor. No matter what resolution I set (even vga 640x480), it gets a horizontal frequency higher than 75 Hz. My monitor is an Eizo TFT that doesn't allow that high an input. I'll check out how to configure Xwindows to use different modes.

Version 3.3-0 works without issues however.
I'll also try Partedmagic, it is from the same person that started the GParted distribution (found this on the forum).


Jörg