Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

The same two Bl3 floppy disks that would not do Xvesa on 1992 Chips and 
Technology in an NEC laptop work fine with Xvesa on a Toshiba Satellie 
420CDT with newer Chips and Technology video.  But in Xsetup pressing 
Enter still does not start X.  Did I misunderstand the instructions?

This card and LCD screen go to 1280. I was asked for the type and location
of the mouse.  The mouse is a green erase-like thing and there are two
sickle-shaped button-like things below the keybaord and PS/2 2-button
worked.

In Magicpoint three are three ways to go to the next page.  Space works.  
Click the mouse works (I first tried right click which did not work, since 
the next page said right click for something else).  Enter does NOT work.  
The other instructions do work, except that to get the menu I had to press 
AND HOLD Ctrl, but to use the mouse pen I had to press AND RELEASE X, and 
hit X again to get back to regular X cursor.  It took some experimenting 
to learn this.

I am online with the PCMCIA modem on the first try, having changed TTYS1
to TTYS2.


I may try running some program (links-ssl?) from floppy disk since there
is no hard drive.  I have 24MB RAM.  How would I use some of it to load 
programs into?  Is 12MB of it already in use by BL3 floppy?  Could I load 
a large program by splitting it into 2 or more 1.44MB files?  


The on-keyboard mouse is easy for me to manage than the mobile kind since 
I can at least treat the buttons as part of the keyboard, to call up the 
menu with right button.  And the arrow keys work here a lot better than in 
DamnSmallLinux menu.  

 On Fri, 30 Jul 2004, Sindi Keesan wrote:

> Xvesa -listmodes for this video tells me it is a 
> Chips and Technologies 65520/530 VBE version 1.2 
> (VESA 1.2) that does up to 640x480x4 (4-bit, 16 colors)
> 
> In DOS, whatvga2 when I try to run it informs me that 
> emm386.exe detected an error caused by a device driver or program
> and I should reboot, which I did.
> 
> Syschk says it is ET3000 with 256 colors (8-bit)
> 
> Xvesa does not do 8-bit color.  It does 15-bit color (and I think maybe 
> also 4 bit or else 2-bit - anyone remember?).   This card does not appear 
> to do 4-bit color, so perhaps there are no modes which it does and Xvesa 
> accepts.  I have not tried using Cshow with the card in mono or 16-color, 
> but I tried Xvesa -mode 640x480x4 and it went blank and rebooted partway, 
> same as when I typed startx.
> 
> Compushow for DOS identifies this as VESA and tests it out at 640x400 and 
> 640x480 with 256 colors, with no other modes offered.
> 
> Since Syschk and Compushow agree with each other (256 colors) but disagree 
> with Xvesa, the latter may be incorrectly identifying the chip and the 
> possible modes.
> 
> I don't think xvg16.tgz would work here either.  Maybe xsvga?
> Anyone else have any ideas?  I have not tried svgalib yet.
> 
> -------
> 
> Another problem is that when I try to write to the DOS floppy disk from 
> BL3 it messes up the disk to the point where the file disk2.tgz gives the 
> wrong size reading, and then I try to delete it and I cannot, and in DOS I 
> get 'sector not found'.  I reformatted and copied disk2.tgz back from hd 
> to floppy disk and I will keep resolv.conf and eznet.conf on hard disk 
> instead of floppy disk.  I cannot change the controller or floppy drive so 
> will learn to live with them.  I have write protected the two floppies.
> 
> It seems to be tomorrow already.  My, this is addictive.
> 
> On Fri, 30 Jul 2004, Sindi Keesan wrote:
> 
> > I booted the 2-floppy version of BL3 and did Xsetup (plain VGA, 640x480,
> > PS/2 mouse - no problems with not seeing what I typed like I had with
> > previous versions), then Enter for Xvesa.  I was warned before hitting
> > Enter that if Xvesa does not work it is probably related to DOS or Windows
> > system files.
> > 
> > This is the LILO version of BL3 so this message is not relevant and maybe 
> > should be removed.
> > 
> > I hit Enter and got back to the prompt.
> > 
> > I typed startx (startX?) and again it did not start X but I got a blank 
> > screen with blinking cursor for a bit, then the screen blinked a bit, 
> > then 
> > it started to reboot and got as far as Video BIOS version 1.00.17 and 
> > stuck there.  I was able to warm boot with Ctrl-Alt-Del.  
> > 
> > This time it read both disks on the first try not the fourth try.   Maybe 
> > the drive is cleaning itself with use?
> > 
> > I did Xsetup and Enter with the same lack of results and don't want to 
> > type startx because it will probably reboot.
> > 
> > This is a plain VGA color video, 512K, I think it is Tseng ET3000.
> > Is this not Xvesa compatible?  I vaguely recall one laptop with color VGA 
> > where we could not use VESA drivers in the DOS viewers, but I think 
> > Compushow worked with the Tseng driver.
> > 
> > Maybe the message about DOS system files should be replaced with one to
> > the effect that some older computers have video chips that don't work with
> > Xvesa and won't start X when you hit the Enter key after Xsetup.  I think
> > someone reported getting a non-VESA-compliant video card to work with
> > Xvesa.  I will check this one with Syschk for VESA status.
> > dmesg does not mention the video chip - is there some other way to 
> > determine it in linux?
> > 
> > The computer has a 1992 BIOS and maybe some 1993 parts as well.
> > 
> > I will try SVGAlib on it instead, after installing to hard disk, with 
> > links graphical from JP and seejpeg since I don't want to compile zgv 
> > right now.  
> > 
> > DOS has a program that makes video cards VESA compliant when you run it 
> > as 
> > a TSR - UNIVESA.  Is there something similar for linux?
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > 
> 
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