Matthias Drochner wrote:
> 
> prlw1@cam.ac.uk said:
> > Is there a way of changing the colours displayed by the virtual
> > terminals? My problem is that I am getting black on black.. 
> 
> Hmm - do you think it is likely that eg blue-on-black is
> visible on your screeen while while-on-black is not?

Not really - chances are nothing is appearing at all - the monitor beeps
suggesting no signal. black-on-black seems like a nice way of saying that
I can change over to a virtual console, log in, type things, logout, but
nothing at all ever appears on the screen.

> I'd say there is a more serious problem with your setup.

Agreed.

> If you can't try another graphics card

Well I could, but it runs X so I can carry on using it as is, but it would
nice to get it to work: it is the onboard graphics of a Dell OptiPlex G1.

>  - could you try to
> kick out the "vga" driver out of your kernel configuration
> and use "pcdisplay" instead (which doesn't try too many
> fancy features)?

Yes, I had a go, and don't understand the results - first check I did the
right thing:

options         WSEMUL_VT100            # VT100 / VT220 emulation
options         WS_KERNEL_FG=WSCOL_GREEN
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_PCVT           # emulate some ioctls
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_SYSCONS        # emulate some ioctls
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_USL            # VT handling 
options         WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_RAWKBD         # can get raw scancodes
options         PCKBD_LAYOUT=KB_UK
options         WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS=8
options         PCDISPLAY_SOFTCURSOR

removed vga*, so just have

#vga0           at isa?
#vga*           at pci?
pcdisplay0      at isa?                 # CGA, MDA, EGA, HGA
#wsdisplay*     at vga? console ?
wsdisplay*      at pcdisplay? console ?         

With such a kernel, I only get 1 console, and ctl-alt-fn doesn't do anything.
No X (as opposed to just X)
On a side note, I get a rectangular steady cursor which follows the booting
text on the bottom line, but I also have a flashing underline cursor which
stays put at 0,2 from bottom left hand corner.

This is getting rather curious!

Cheers,

Patrick