[BL] Xvesa and MS DOS 7.1 standalone

sindi keesan keesan at sdf.lonestar.org
Wed Jun 15 16:00:18 EDT 2005


We had to put MS DOS 7.10 on three computers to make them boot with 
loadlin.  Now Xvesa won't work with this OS on this computer - I tried BL3 
loop and ext2 hd.  Illegal instruction.

I installed xsvga.tgz and no-xvesa.tgz instead and they work fine except 
that we need to change to a PS/2 mouse.  I will also use my config file 
that sets up for xsvga and 1024 resolution.  We have a Trident card.

BL3 with Xvesa works on our other computers with this DOS 7.10 and it 
worked with DR-DOS on these computers on those rare occasions when it 
would boot with loadlin and DR-DOS.

We then chrooted to the identical copy of BL3 on a second drive plugged 
into this computer and installed xsvga and no-xvesa and copied over my 
XF86Config and things worked there too except that links2 -g produces a 
very pretty blinking pastel screen - light purple background, blue strip 
at top, turquoise at right, green at bottom.

It blinks when you move the mouse to the screen edge and you get the usual 
blue background as long as the mouse stays there.  PS/2 mouse.

This computer will be used for both DOS and linux so needs himem.sys 
therefore we will not experiment with it.  We remarked out smartdrv 
because they caused problems in Windows DOS 7.1.

This is xsvga not xvesa!!!!!

We will try links2 in BL2 with svgalib and hope it works there.

We have no color problems with BL3 links2 -g on other computers in Xvesa. 
I did not try with xsvga elsewhere.

MagicPoint looks normal here.  It is something about this hardware 
interacting with DOS 7.10 standalone and both Xvesa (illegal instruction) 
and xsvga ( messes up the colors in links2).

The kids we are making these computers for want a graphical browser. 
Maybe Opera will work better.

The sound works perfectly with Opti929, and even with speaker output 
(on-card amp) sounds great!  Speaker out is just right for small 
non-powered speakers, at its high setting, and for headphones at a middle 
setting.   A later Opti 931 sounds really crummy with speaker out - loud 
buzz.  Cards are not what they used to be.

keesan at sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org



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