Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004, Knut Backe wrote:

> You can use 'Xvesa -listmodes' to find which resolutions and
> colour depths your card supports. Xvesa requires a vesa 2.0
> compliant card and vesa 2.0 was published at the end of 1994
> (if I remember correctly). Cards that doesn't support vesa 2.0
> should only support standard vga, i.e. 640x480 at 16 colours.

I tried this.  vgatest also lists possible modes and lets you test them.  
It listed some cards as working at 1076x960 and other odd resolutions. I 
tried one of these with Xvesa and it did work, but so did 1024x768.  I 
don't understand how this all works.  SVGAlib (links2) does not appear to 
support all the resolutions which a card supports, such as 2-bit color.  I 
tried and was told to use something on the list.

These cards (with maybe one exception) all tested out (DOS whatvga2) as
VESA 1.2.  Xvesa for BL2, a slackware package (from Delilinux?).  I am
guessing the Xvesa for BL3 should work on the same cards, forgot to try,
but I am willing to try any card with BL3 if someone wants.

It is possible that these cards will also work at 1280 or 1600 but you 
need the right monitor.  I tried a few at 1280 and things looked squished.
S3 cards won't even work at 1024 on some of our monitors, nor will Cirrus.
They don't match frequencies or scan rates or something.  

I think it was xfbd (frame buffer) that required VESA 2.0.

> 
> More info about Xvesa can be found here:
> http://www.xfree86.org/current/Xvesa.1.html
> http://www.xfree86.org/current/Xkdrive.1.html

Thanks, I tried to make sense of this but it is over my head.