Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> 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.

That is nice.  I have been confusing Xvesa with xfbdev, which does need 
the framebuffer stuff (bare.i and devs.tgz installed).  I could not get 
the fbdev package to work but might try it again if Xvesa is not going to 
give more than 8-bit color.  Steven, did you get more colors?

Xvesa is far easier to set up and use.  

> 
> 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.

I had no idea that the DOS config.sys affected what happens when you 
reboot in linux!  Are you talking about running Xvesa in RAM here?


> 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).  
>

By copy, which file(s) do you need to actually run Xvesa?  As James 
pointed out, the ramdisk version does not install packages, but we could 
manually add files.

> 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.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Please consider including James' script for reading the manpages with 
man2html and links.  I use it frequently.


> 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)

What is real DOS?  

> 
> > 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).

I don't think I have changed any symlinks when I installed Xvesa.  I can 
still type startx and use XSVGA with the default resolution (which for me 
is 1024).  The default for Xvesa is 640.  XSVGA and Xvesa coexist 
peacefully.  XSVGA and xxfbd do not.


> > 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

I followed your instructions and yes it can.

startx -- Xvesa [with optional arguments for screen resolution and color]

What does the -- mean?  It is also found in startx -- -bpp16 .


> > 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)

My Trios are all VESA 1.2.  The Virges are 2.0 and have more RAM.
I thought kdrive was a version of tinyx and so was xvesa.  I am getting 
very confused.  Kdrive works with VESA 1.1 but better with 1.2, it says.

I could not get the XS3 driver to work with my S3 Trio64, only xsvga.  
The latter does only 8-bit color.  Did Xvesa do more for you?

I will still take a look at tinyx some time soon.  First I need to install 
perl and perl-add and compile openssl so that I can compile lynx with ssl.  
Doug Kaufmann is incredibly patient with this.  

Steven and James, thanks for all the info on xvesa, which could bypass the 
most aggravating and impossible part of getting X to work in at least 256 
colors.  

We have one laptop with video that is not VESA 1.2 but it also does not 
have enough RAM to run BL2, so I think Xvesa would be a good substitute 
for vga16.  

If anyone needs a pci video card please let us know - we now have about 15
of them.  A friend who works for a local second-had store is giving us the
donated computers that are not sellable.
 
> Cheers,
> Steven
> 
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