From: Tony Williams 

If you're running X 4.1 you can put :

  Option "Display" "BIOS"

in your config to get around the need to use alt-F8.

Don't know about text mode at startup, but you can look at the boot
messages using "dmesg" in an xterm.

--
Tony

You Can wrote:
> Linux with external Monitor
>
> I have a Dell D500 laptop. I have installed RedHat 9.0 in a small
> configuration. I have X installed and can get to the Xterm window. Now comes
> the interesting part. I plan to use an external monitor plugged into the VGA
> port on the Laptop. Also the native keyboard will be removed. If I attempt
> to boot in this configuration nothing is on the external monitor. With the
> keyboard I can use the Fn F8 key sequence to switch the video to the
> external monitor. Note however this must be done before X is started or the
> image is corrupted. However this only works if a keyboard is available.
>
> I have a windows XP module that works fine in this configuration and when
> windows comes up the image is directed to the external monitor and
> everything works fine. My guess is that windows must execute a command to
> the laptop bios that switches the video mode.
>
> What I need is the command to control the video mode and where I can put
> this command early in the linux startup so that the boot scripts are
> displayed as well as the final X environment. I assume a command can be put
> in the GRUB configuration file.
> TIA

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