Other Help Topics :: *lots* of DSL questions from a linux newb
Please bare with me as I'm just venturing out of the windows world for the first time...
I just received DSL to use on an older machine: 200Mhz processor, 64MB ram & a 1.2 gig HD. I believe it's booting up ok as I follow the prompts and it continues to a final screen that launches a page that explains some things. My main issue is that the Page, Screen and Type have horrid settings.... The default screen is a dark blue & the mouse pointer arrow is the same blue with a very thing black outline.... it's d@mn near invisible. The info page is black with the same horrid dark blue type. The only way to even see it is in a pitch black room, any light and you might as well be looking at a blank screen. Not to mention the type size is EXTREMELY small. I have however happened across by accident the pop-up menus by right clicking the mouse. However they don't seem to doo too much..... well at least not in my hands.
What I'd first like to know is there any way to re-set the screen & type colors.... I'd be perfectly happy if the screen were white (or some other very lite color) and the type were black (icons as well). That would make things very readable. From there I guess my next issue would be to figure out how to configure things to be able to use it to connect to the internet.
All suggestions and help is greatly appreciated......thx.
Hmm...
try booting with this command:
dsl xsetup
and then choose the xvesa server and try out a few different resolutions and color depths.
My first suggestion is to try 800x600x16bit
The colours don't sound right - check out the screenshot on the home page, it'll show you what it should look like.
A guess is that your graphics card doesn't like the defult setup. Try booting with "dsl vga=normal" or "fb800x600" (no quotes on either). Or press F2 at the boot options prompt to get the full list of what options you have.
By default, DSL boots into 1024x768 resolution. You're probably better off using 800x600 if that looks too small. Might want to try a lower colour depth too, like 16bit or 24bit. Using 800x600 instead of 1024x768 may fix the colour issues, if not, changing the colour depth as well may do the trick.
Once you're in DSL, you can change the "style" of the desktop (the background and menu colours) by right-clicking the desktop, go to "Desktop / Styles", and you'll get a whole list of styles you can choose from. Or later you can download and add other styles, like the "rogue" theme! 
damnit, bagger got in before me!!
Thank you both.....Success! Did the f2 key and fb800x600x16.... I can see the page now. I did a little exploring but would like to focus on 2 things before checking out the rest of the programs.
~ If possible I would just like to load DSL to the hard drive. How would I go about that?
~ I want to set the computer up for the internet. I checked out the icon named DSL Panel and clicked on it and the tab labeled "Dial up". Am I on the right track?
Next Page...
original here.