Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> Sindi Keesan wrote:
> >
> > I have been confusing Xvesa with xfbdev, which does need 
> > the framebuffer stuff (bare.i and devs.tgz installed).  
> 
> Also, in order to run framebuffer, you need a VESA 2.0
> video card.  

I have that on one computer and could not get fbdev working.

> > if Xvesa is not going to give more than 8-bit color.  
> > Steven, did you get more colors?
> 
> I don't know.  I can certainly see the difference between
> 16 colors and 256 colors, but beyond that it's all the
> same to me.


When you run Xvesa with icewm, 8-bit color is light turquoise and 16-bit 
color is dark blue.  Which color do you get with startx -- Xvesa when 
using icewm?


> > > (1) have more than 16mb RAM.
> > > (2) have real DOS (or Win9x)
> > 
> > What is real DOS?  
> 
> A low-level DOS, not a DOS window in a GUI OS.

I think you must be referring to the 'new' Windows, which we have never 
seen in operation.  We just started to upgrade people to Win98.

We seem to have one of those computers that will work with DOS and Linux 
but not with Win98.  It keeps crashing when I try to load Opera.  Same 
hard drive works fine with Win98 in another computer.  We tried three sets 
of RAm and three different cpus at different speeds.  At the full 166MHz 
it crashes early on while installing Windows.  Set back to 150MHz it 
crashes at various points while trying to load Opera.  Is this typical of 
computers that won't work with Windows and what might cause it?  We put in 
16-64M RAM.  DOS rarely uses more than 16M, nor did BL2 RAMdisk. 

We might give this friend a Compaq instead, already working with Win95.  
It is another Compaq that was doing frequent resets with Linux so maybe 
they are optimized for Windows instead.  
 
> Yes, kdrive is derived from tinyx.  However, there are currently
> *two* ways of displaying X from kdrive:  one uses the framebuffer
> (which is a capability of VESA 2.0 video cards) and the other
> uses the VESA routines directly (which is a capability of any
> VESA video card).


How exactly are kdrive, tinyx, xvesa, and xfbdev related?  
Is JP's tinyx different from xvesa and does it need VESA 2.0 and 
framebuffer?  I might try it next and report back on colors (or maybe you 
have the time - I have a large translation about the bactericidal 
properties of garlic and onions to do first).  

> 
> > The latter does only 8-bit color.  Did Xvesa do more for you?
> 
> Don't know.  256 is plenty of colors for me -- I don't notice
> when there are more.

I noticed when I ran X in 8-bit color and tried to import a 24-bit color 
image into some X program (Image Magick?) that it really slowed things 
down a lot because the program converted from 24 to 8 bits before 
displaying.  XV seems to be faster at this.  

> 
> > 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.
> 
> Aggravating yes, impossible no.  And it's only aggravating the 
> first time.  Once you figure out the correct HorizSync and Vert 
> Refresh for the monitor, it's fine from then on (even when you
> change video cards).  However, I can see that it would be
> continually aggravating for somebody like you, who continually
> gets different monitors to configure.

We just gave away the only monitor for which we had specs (kindly sent by 
a list member).  Someone gave us another one (both 17") which we fixed 
(by taking it apart and putting it back together - dirty contacts).  This 
one does 1600 resolution - does this indicate the minimal horiz and vert 
rates?  


> > We have one laptop with video that is not VESA 1.2 but it also 
> > does not have enough RAM to run BL2, 
> 
> How much RAM?  I saw an account of somebody who ran Slackware
> with Xvesa in 4mb RAM.  He moved the HD to different system,
> installed everything there and then moved the HD back into
> the laptop.

I think it is 2M RAM.  With 3M on a 386 I can run Linux, and with 1M
Arachne (it helps to delete all the icons and gifs first).  Or Nettamer or
Netmail (for which you need either a modem faster than 2400 or a hard
drive otherwise it times out).  We were experimenting on our laptops.  We
have two XTs without hard drives, a 286 without a working floppy drive
(lent to a friend to do email)  and a lunchbox 286 with orange plasma TTL
monitor and detachable keyboard (very useful in the hospital), and 386s 
with 1 and 3M RAM, none of which will run BL2 (even in mono).  A 486 with 
2M RAM and I think one with 6M (mono VGA).  We have not found much use for 
laptop computers.  Why put linux on a laptop that is harder to bike around 
with than 2 floppy disks, when everyone you visit already has a computer?

> Cheers,
> Steven
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