Baslinux mailing list

["David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT lycos.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>

> But xfbdev has the same problems that Xvesa does with 8-bit color 
> and S3 cards work fine with Xvesa (and usually also with svgalib 
> and resizecons) so there is not a lot of point in making S3 cards 
> work with framebuffer unless you like the looks of the text mode 
> better.  It also comes with a little penguin during boot.

OK. S3 support was why I compiled that kernel. It looks like it doesn't
work, I will eventually remove the bzImage from my website. S3 cards work
fine with Xvesa?? I thought Xvesa only worked with VESA 2.0 and later?

> >> THese cards produce nicer looking 132x50 than does resizecons, and
> >> also 100x37, but not 80x37 (unless I get fbset to work with matrox).
> >
> > Does it not work with matrox? For matrox cards, you need to boot normally,
> > without a framebuffer, then load the matroxfb modules.
> 
> I was able to use the matrox card with vesafb kernel.

I should have said, "Does _fbset_ not work with matrox cards?"

> fbset 
> probably won't work but xfbdev worked and the text modes worked. I 
> don't have a kernel to use with the matrox card.  Some day.  I 
> ought to finish learning to print with pbmtolj first.

Why doesn't my kernel work with matrox? Does the driver crash?

> >>> The fb cursor offline was a rectangle alternating between dark
> >>> and medium bright but online it is bright all the time (at least
> >>> after exiting pine - did not pay attention before this).
> >
> > Is this with the framebuffer? Does it actually switch resolutions on you?
> Yes this is the framebuffer cursor.  When it is on a word it is 
> reverse (light on dark).  Does what switch resolutions?  I cannot 
> switch after booting like I could with resizecons.  But I don't 
> have the matrox kernel.

So when it goes into 80x25 mode, the fonts don't get any bigger? They're
the same size, only everything's in an 80x25 box?

> >> The vesafb.tar.gz package contains some modules (for which kernel?)
> >
> > 2.2.16. The custom one I made.
> Different size mdacon.o.gz from what I found at Slackware 7.1, 
> maybe a later version of the same driver.

Or different options. There were a bunch of optional things I selected
for mine.

> >> Is this file taken from Slackware 4.0
> >
> > No. To my knowledge, 4.0 isn't even a 2.2.16 kernel.
> I meant xfbdev and fbset.  The former requires libm.so.1 so I 
> copied that from BL3.

Neither are. The original xfbdev I had was built against libc5, in
a crude way. The new one is statically built against uClibc (I'm
repeating myself, I know) and fbset is built the same way. The fbset
isn't even the real thing, it's a tiny version of busybox. If you rename
it to busybox you'll see the standard busybox screen.

> And it would need a configuration file but this one does not?

Correct.

> Why do people make things larger with no added functionality?

You've got that backwards: the larger one came first, then the code
was rewritten to be smaller.

> Okay.  I also have, somewhere, an ATI card with uses the aty-something 
> driver.
> 
> >> ATI framebuffer cards need a different kernel from matroxfb and
> >> vesafb so I can't try that one yet with framebuffer.
> >
> > I thought I put that in my kernel .config.
> 
> Does that mean you compiled for matrox or you suggested how to 
> compile?  I won't be compiling kernels for a while.  Your config 
> file and kernel and patch and instructions are all in one place 
> waiting for me.

I selected both the ATI and Matrox drivers. At least, I thought I
chose ATI. I might have removed it. Whatever's in that config.txt
on my website is what's there. Matrox is a module, included with
vesafb.tar.gz. Insmod all the fbcon modules, then matroxfb and you
should have a matrox framebuffer.

> If the new xfbdev fixes the mouse and works with all three cards 
> (one of which did not work with it) then we are set.  But I got the 
> impression xfbdev does not work with all cards, same as Xvesa.

Xfbdev should work with any card that has a working framebuffer driver
loaded. vesafb is the main problem, its support appears to be the same
or roughly equivalent as/to Xvesa's.

> Was the S3 patch supposed to let you use vga=ask or just xfbdev?  I 
> did not try the latter. Let's see if a better computer works better 
> with S3 and patched kernel.

Xfbdev, and by extension framebuffer. vga=ask is a different kernel
option.

David
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