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

My partner wants 100 columns text and his Cirrus card could not do 
anything other than 80x25-60 (using resizecons, which produces text that 
is hard to read in some of these modes).

So I put in the Stealth II 220 with Rendition chip, VESA 2.0, 4MB RAM (so 
he could use Opera in up to 1280 resolution on his 17" monitor).

It can be used with resizecons in 80 columns but if you do vga=ask and 
scan for more modes it crashes and you cannot do a warm reboot.
Also, once you boot (with vga=ask or a mode number) you cannot switch 
modes and get anything legible (the words all look doubled).

The framebuffer kernel worked nicely in 80, 100, 132 and even 160 columns 
(with a magnifying glass).

svgalib does not work with this card with any kernel.  Nor does links2 
because it cannot open GPM mouse, in fb mode.

We have links2 in X and xv or xli as a viewer.

On a previous computer the card worked in Xvesa but not in xfbdev.

On this computer (same Intel P166 chip, different motherboard) it will go 
into Xvesa but on exit it crashes (I think I had to power off and on 
again). (The Voodoo card also goes into Xvesa but on exit the screen is 
too dim to read).  It works perfectly with xfbdev.

The first computer does not work terribly well with FreeDOS - only two of 
about 20 drives we tried would let FreeDOS even boot, and FreeDOS fdisk 
won't work at all on it. (One other computer acted similarly).

So this is a black art - keep trying cards in motherboards until you get 
either Xvesa or xfbdev to work.

Matrox worked with both (in one computer, anyway).

We have set up the computer with Stealth to use a choice of files for 
booting with:

bootask.bat - boot with standard kernel and vga=ask, lets you choose 80 
columns by 25-60 lines (but not 132 with this card, and you cannot resize 
after booting).

boothd.bat - boots with standard kernel and 80x25

boot80.bat  - framebuffer kernel, 80 columns (to use X in 640 res 16M 
colors, for editing our digital photos)

boot100.bat  boot132.bat boot160.bat - 64K (I chose the mode numbers to 
give this color depth)

For some reason startx and xinit are not working on this computer but I 
got aliases made for xfbdev at various resolutions:

xfbdev& rxvt -e icewm &rxvt  -icewm screen with rxvt ready to use

Did similarly for going straight into opera or xv.

You cannot leave a space between & and rxvt.


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