[orca-list] Orca and Graphics Cards

[Martin McCormick <martin x it okstate edu>]

I recently became owner of a 2005-vintage Dell P.C. that had
been originally used for gaming. It had a NVIDIA graphics card
and the best I could do was to run ubuntu9.10 where Orca would
run fitfully, crashing frequently. The ubuntu10.10 live CD and
Vinux3.1 based on the same version of ubuntu went through the
motions of running but never produced a single sound.

        Since I don't really need accelerated graphics but do
need a rock-steady system, I removed the NVIDIA card and began
using the Dell on-board video chip set. There were two soft
switches in the CMOS regarding the video and I was not
completely sure how to properly set them since it appears that
Orca uses some of the video memory. One of the switches was
between AGP and Auto. I thought auto sounded safer since it
could in theory make up its own mind. The other switch was
between a 1-meg and a 8-meg video buffer. I chose the 8-meg
buffer. The system has 1.3 GB of RAM and Orca came up on the
ubuntu9.10 CD. The speech seemed a little more solid than before
so I thought I had done something good, powered down the
computer and moved it to a different location. It has never
since booted once so I think the power cycle must have let it
automatically choose the wrong video mode.

        Oh, how I hate CMOS setup! Actually, I don't blame
anybody, but if you have to get help looking at the screen and
can't just get in their and play with it till it works, I really
hate stuff like that. One is stuck with eyeballs facing screen
or nothing at all.

        When I made the discovery that it wouldn't reboot, my
dear patient wife had already begun getting ready to end the day
so I must wait for the next chance to make one small change and
waste 4 more hours trying to see if it really works. 

        My hopes were to install ubuntu9.10 and then upgrade it
to 10.10 on line and then to eleven when it comes out soon.

        The system does successfully boot an older Vinux2.1
command-line CD and I can see the boot drive so it appears to be
fine but Orca still is just out of reach.