I've searched these forums and Google for two hours now and have not found anything relating to my situation, so I figured I'd finally post.

I installed R5A30.2 and followed the instructions for Autoinstall. Everything seemed to be going fine. The CD ejected and I hit ENTER to reboot, which means I'm at the "post installation" stage of the installation instructions.

However, after seeing a lot of text flash by the screen, it appears to enter a desktop environment but I can't make out a thing on the monitor. All I can see is a fuzzy man (blue shirt, black pants) staggered across the monitor 4 times, as well as big "YTH" letters at the top 4 times. I can barely see my cursor, but there's 4 of them across my screen. I'm assuming something is wrong with my hardware configuration or drivers.

I have an ATI Radeon 9000 (pro, I think?) hooked up to the VGA monitor and PVR-350 hooked up to my VCR which is on the correct video mode to display to the TV.

I probably need to install drivers or something, but I can't see enough to do anything. I should be at the Post Installation phase and be asked to enter my root password, but I can't make anything out on my monitor and nothing is going through to my TV, either.

Any help you guys can provide is greatly appreciated, especially is if it kept in very simple terms in a step by step format.

Hitting the Ctrl-Alt-F1 should take you to a text console where you can log in as root and start poking at this.

BTW - I'm prety sure this is (or at least used to be) covered in the instructions.

It's not covered any of the installation directions I've seen and I haven't found anything on forums or Google that helps either, so if you have a set of instructions that I don't, I'd appreciate a link or something. Thanks.

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/doc.html (See the section on X set up)

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=DocsPage (See the section on X set up)
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=KnoppMythInstall (ditto)
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=KnoppMythR5PreviewInstall(ditto)
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=LinuxTips (see the "getting a command prompt" topic)
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6309 (ATi install instructions)
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=HauppaugeThreeFiftyInstallation (350 setup instructions)
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3886&highlight=350 (ditto)

I think we could probably stand to distribute this information a bit more widely. If it weren't for the 255 character limit I could make it my signature block, and I'd gladly spring for a minimum order of temporary tattoos with this information for Cecil to hand out along with the CDs at events like SCALE, if we could only find the ones that go on the insides of peoples eyelids...

Thanks for the links. I've read through most of those instructions already, but I don't see anything that addresses my situation. They seem to assume that my display works fine and that I can actually see what I'm doing. I tried the ALT+CRTL+F1 option, which asked me to login, but that's it. According to the instructions, I'm supposed to be asked to give the root password and then configure date/time and IP info.

I also tried downloading the *.run Linux driver from ATI's website, but the installation generated an error report, so I dunno where to go from here.

I ran netcardconfig so at least I could run apt-update, but I haven't found what apt-update line to enter so I can update ATI linux drivers that way. Although, after the TV card is working, I won't be using the ATI card anyway.

1) Press <ctrl><alt><f1>
2) Login
3) Fix the problem with your X drivers/ATI card
4) Reboot
5) Continue with the knoppmyth instliation

Or you could not use the ATI videocard since they have horrible linux support.

Okay, cool. So my next question is, what exactly do i need to do to start troubleshooting this issue? I used to have Ubuntu installed on this system using the generic video drivers and never had a problem, but I'll confess I do not know much when it comes to configuring display devices in Linux. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks everyone for your time and patience. Sorry if I sound like a nag or a total noob.

I think tjc already did that for you.

In case anyone else has this problem, I finally gave up on trying to make my ATI card work and switched it with an old nVidia graphics card from my computer at work. After installing the drivers for it I had to comment out some of the monitor refresh rates in XF86Config-4. Apparently my monitor is too old to support some of these settings.

In hindsight, maybe the ATI card would've worked too by changing the monitor's refresh rate settings first, but since the nVidia card is finally working properly I'm not gonna touch anything.

UPDATE: Since I messed up something else and had to reinstall KnoppMyth anyway, I decided to try it with the ATI card again. Sure enough, I uncommented the monitor refresh line that says "These are very conservative settings" and commented out the line above it instead. ATI card displays fine now.

I have a similar problem.

Ive managed to get MythTV installed, but when I boot with it connected to my 42"plasma (via vga) it loads in a stupid resolution making most of the fonts unreadable.

If I do ctrl+alt+F1 it enters a video mode the TV cant handle and the plasma shuts down.

Im not a linux jedi, hence my use of knopmyth instead of trying to install linux/mythtv seperately so i dont know how to edit the resolutions.

Is there a simlpe faq for knopmyth specificaly on how to change the screen res for the desktop and the alternate consoles?

There are LOTS of guides on the net but they all make assumptions that are not true for my setup.
"go to this dir and type this command", and I find i dont have either that dir or command

Don't install knoppmyth while connected to your TV. Use a real monitor. There is probaly no way you will get the text console to work on your TV. Once you have knoppmyth installed you can try different screen modelines in the /etc/X11/X86Config-4 file until you fine the best one for your TV. There are a bunch of suggested HDTV modelines on the http://wiki.knoppmyth.net/ page.

My plasma IS a real monitor
Its 1024x1024 with VGA input. I have no problem using 1024x768 display from most PCs. I have no idea why Myth goes into this random tiny screenmode.
I have been isntalling on an old VGA only monitor and i get a lovely screenmode on that. Once running i swap the lead to the plasma and its great! big easy fonts. Looks purty.

However, once its all isntalled and looking good, if I reboot, BANG. Its back into stupid mode.

Im a linux n00b and dont know about modelines etc.
I would hope once installed it would stay in that mode, but it just changes each time you boot.

You need to disable the EDID stuff. Most TVs under report their resolution when queried as monitors. Look under the HDTV forum for details.

That is why I placed a URL to the wiki in my post. But I guess you couldn't be bothered to click on it.