Baslinux mailing list

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

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, David Moberg wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
>
> > > Apparently Xvesa works with these cards. Getting X to run on those
> > > cards was why I built this kernel. It looks like that purpose has
> > > already been fulfilled.
> >
> > Maybe some people prefer the looks of the framebuffer text modes?
>
> If you want framebuffer, there are other kernels.

I could not find a SW7.1 framebuffer kernel.  THe SW81 kernel is at least 
twice as large as the BL kernels (maybe three times) and for some reason 
svgalib won't work with it.  I appreciate having your kernel as an option.

> > If you rebuild that kernel again, besides leaving out the S3 stuff,
> > could you add vfat and CD-ROM support?  These VESA 2.0 cards are
> > generally found in computers with plenty of RAM.  Also I don't
> > think you need to combine vesafb kernel with support for Matrox
> > modules because the matrox does not seem to work with this kernel
> > and should have a different one.
Apparently vesafb and matroxfb are not mutually exclusive - I don't know 
why the crash with matroxfb.

> I'll leave that job to someone else.
Some day I will attempt it.

> > What is vfb.o?
>
> Am I experiencing a bad case of deja vu, or did you already ask that?
You explained it in an email that I read after asking the question.

> > The first time I downloaded I got gibberish but on the second
> > download I got a file that uncompressed just fine in BL2 but not in
> > BL3.  So I just copied over the modules I was missing instead.
> > Maybe what you used to compress made a file that the busybox tar of
> > BL3 cannot handle?  I copied vesafb.tar.gz directly between linuxes
> > on the same hard drive which has never given me problems before.
>
> tar -zcf vesafb.tar.gz modules is what I used. I can't understand why
> it would work with BL2, but not BL3.
Me neither.  It uncompressed as far as mdacon or so and then stopped.

> > > Fbset is the way to change resolution.
> > Yes but only for matrox and that would not work.
>
> Good point. With vesafb, it's stuck at that resolution until you reboot.

My partner is interested in 100 columns and would like to try one of these 
cards in his 166MHz pentium, and does not care about switching between 
modes.  He wants to print longer lines of shell script homework.


> > One website said to try
> > one if the other did not work, which is why it would be helpful to
> > have a framebuffer kernel and yours is probably half the size of
> > whatever Slackware offers and boots much faster.  I don't like using
> > even bare.i .
>
> How much longer does it take to load? If I move IDE to a module, the
> kernel boots up so fast on my PII machine that the messages are a
> blur.

I will time it maybe tomorrow with your kernel versus SW8.1 bare.i
at 166MHz.   I think it is about 20 seconds with BL3 and lots of RAM.


> > Someone please remind me how to extract individual modules from the
> > file on CD.  I would like to get FB_CON*.o.gz, for instance, along
> > with matroxfb and a few others, without having to unpack it all.
>
> tar -ztf first, to list all of the files. Then tar -zxf tarball.tar.gz
> path/to/filename.ext path/to/nextfileyouwant.
Thanks  - I must have left off the path (inside the tarball) because it 
did not work when I tried a couple months ago.

> David
> --
> _______________________________________________
> NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at 
> once.
> http://datingsearch.lycos.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> BasLinux mailing list
> BasLinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/baslinux

keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org