Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

> > > The first card I tried with framebuffer and David's patchedkernel
> > > that works with S3, was an S3 Trio64V and it did not work as a
> > > framebuffer device.
> >
> > Try vga=ask. When it asks for a mode, try a lower resolution, and also
> > try (separately) using the scan option to look for different modes.
> > Does it work on any other S3-style cards? If it doesn't, then I built
> > a kernel for no reason, and the patch is useless.
>
> Scan did not produce any more modes than usual.


If I type vga=ask in the loadlin line even with a know framebuffer device 
it gives me the usual 80x25 through 60 not fb modes.

The new S3 card in this different computer did not work in the framebuffer 
modes, "undefined mode number".  Can anyone else check out this kernel for 
the S3 patch?

> But I just discovered that the computer with the S3 card, which does not work 
> properly with S3 Virge and resizecons, won't work at all with S3 and svgalib 
> so it is not a good computer to test on.  I will try S3 Trio64 and/or Virge 
> soon with fb in the computer where the other cards were tested (and maybe the 
> gpm.tgz whole package as well).
>
> 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.
>
> > > The second card, Stealth II 220 with Rendition chip, worked as
> > > framebuffer and looks nice at 800 and 1024 resolution, but could
> > > not open GPM mouse for links2, and it crashes completely to a black
> > > screen, not rebootable, with xfbdev (in BL2, with libm.so.5 from
> > > BL3 - BL3 can't even find the cursor font for it).
>
> But works with Xvesa.  I was thinking maybe you cannot have both.  A website 
> said if one won't work, try the other.
>
> > I hope to have solved both of these issues, by building a new Xfbdev.
> > I botched the previous job, and built a server that kind of works,
> > but has some bugs. Try the new one, it's in the vesafb.tar.gz file at
> > my site. It's compiled statically against uClibc (with -static) so it
> > should run well on either BL. It also has built-in fonts, so that
> > problem should be gone.
>
> Okay, maybe tomorrow or this weekend.  I spent all day on testing first the 
> cards and then the software and need a break/

I will take the break tomorrow, I guess.

I also tried installing the whole gpm.tgz in BL2 which did not help to get 
links2 -g working as a fb device.  The program looks first for X, then for 
svgalib -mode option, then for fb and quits when it cannot open GPM mouse.

This mouse works with gpm but it is a somewhat odd one which only worked 
with this one mouse connector.  And no other mouse works in the connector.

Links2 can be used in X, and svgalib still works with the matrox card.

> > 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.


Besides matroxfb - which modules?  The fbcon modules might have something 
to do with using it as a second card and assigning consoles to two 
monitors.

> > Summary:
> >
> > 1) New Xfbdev binary, try it and see if it works

Neither of them works with the Rendition card.  The old one worked with 
Matrox and Voodoo.  I did not test the new one with them - should I?

> > 2) S3 VESA 1.2 cards may be usable, otherwise that patch and kernel based
> > on it were pointless.

Two Trio64 cards did not work, one in each of two computers.  Should I try 
Virge next?  They appear to have the same text modes (same files work with 
resizecons).



I was unable to properly decompress vesafb.tar.gz with BL3:
After matroxfb it said "invalid tar magic".

mdacon.o should have come out next.  In BL2 it was 1/2 the size of the 
previous version.  I copied over xfbdev from BL2 to BL3.

There are some files in the package which are just lists of modules.