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Sindi Keesan wrote:
>
> we are putting linux on computers with SiS and S3 Trio3D 
> video, for which the Cards file says use XSVGA (the specific 
> chips are listed in the file), not an accelerated driver.  
> These are both fairly new video chips with 2-8M RAM, that 
> will do up to 1600 res and 24bit color.  Is there any way 
> to predict if Linux 

Do you mean Linux?  Or the XSVGA server in Slackware 7.1?
Linux will almost certainly be able to use those higher
resolutions, but it's questionable whether Slackware 7.1
will.  This is always the case with hardware capabilities
developed post Slackware 7.1.  To fully utilize recent
hardware, you will probably need a recent Linux.
  
As I have said many times, BasicLinux is designed to run
on older PCs.  There are plenty of up-to-date distributions
that run beautifully on up-to-date PCs.

> will only run them at 8-bit color before actually 
> configuring for them?

Try it and see.  Changing the color depth is easy.  Start 
with 8-bit colour and get it working perfectly.  Then edit 
/etc/XF86Config and change the DefaultColorDepth from 8 to
16 (or 24 or 32).

> They are both VESA 2.0 compliant.  

Then you should be able to use the frame-buffer Xserver 
(xxfb.tgz) instead of XSVGA.  Whether this will give you 
a better display, I do not know.  I have never tried the 
FB Xserver.

> Also, what do I change in XF86Config so that when I have 
> the video set to 1024 res and I type Ctl-Alt-+ it does not 
> give me a 1024 virtual screen with everything magnified in 
> it, but a plain 800 or 640 res screen 

I know of no way to do that.  The screen size is automatically 
set to the largest resolution in your XF86Config (unless you 
specify a different virtual size in XF86Config).  AFAIK, once 
set, that screen size (virual or otherwise) is fixed irrespective 
of the display resolution you use (CTL-ALT-+).

Cheers,
Steven