Baslinux mailing list

[3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org]

Sindi Keesan wrote:
>
> > > -------------
> > > devfs=nomount
> > > -------------
>
> I put this at the end of the rest of the booti.bat file 
> which included  bzimage (bare.i) instead of zimage.

All of those changes are unnecessary.  Xvesa runs fine on 
a standard BL2 installation.

I finally sorted out the Xvesa problem on my system.  It had 
nothing to do with Linux.  It was caused by DOS.  My CONFIG.SYS 
is rather complicated and something in there is fouling VM86 
(I think).  I haven't worked out yet what is doing it -- all 
I know is, when I bypass that CONFIG.SYS, Xvesa works fine.

You can actually run Xvesa from the BL2 ramdisk.  Just copy
it to the /tmp directory (which provides an extra 4mb of
space on systems with spare RAM) and execute it.  I have 
even run Xvesa from the two-floppy version of BL2 (there 
is space on the first floppy for a gzipped copy of Xvesa).  

I've only just started playing with Xvesa, but it appears to 
have considerable potential.  At the very least, I'll have a 
look at ditching Xvga16 and using Xvesa instead.  However, some 
other interesting possibilities come to mind:
-------------------------------------------------------------
A two-floppy version of BL2 that automatically configures the
local network card, connects to an X application server and 
comes up as an X terminal.
----------------------------------------------------------------
A non-ramdisk BL (including X, icewm, pkgtool, manpages, PCMCIA) 
that comes as a 5mb zip file.  Unzips in DOS and installs to its 
own ext2 partition on systems with as little as 4mb RAM.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, it would be possible to do a ramdisk BL with X, icewm,
manpages, etc., but it would only be suitable for systems that:
(1) have more than 16mb RAM.
(2) have real DOS (or Win9x)

> Now how do I start an xterm or run a program or even load icewm?
> .xinitrc is apparently not used by Xvesa.

I think it is when you symlink X to Xvesa instead of XSVGA
(or whatever it is currently linked to in /var/X11R6/bin).

> The books all assume you are using XConfig86 and startx and .xinitrc.

Xvesa does not use XF86Config.  But I believe it can be started
using startx and .xinitrc

> If this works I will investigate kdrive 

Xvesa is one version of kdrive.  Another version uses the framebuffer.
 
> It should be usable with any VESA 1.2 video card 

It works on my S3 TrioV+ (which I think is VESA 1.2)

Cheers,
Steven