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  • From: "David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT lycos.com>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] a very strange laptop
  • Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 20:14:59 -0500

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

> The neighbor just brought us a computer to ask if we could delete
> her personal files from it. The LCD screen was nearly unreadable
> even after turning up the contrast and brightness so I plugged in a
> VGA monitor and gave her some floppy disks to take her own files
> off (she never knew she could add an external monitor).
>
> In Windows sometimes I can read the screen for a while but it keeps
> varying in brightness. In DOS or linux (text mode or swm) the
> brightness is fine. Why?

Does this brightness continue to vary if you switch resolutions in
Windows? This sounds like a laptop that I used to have, a Dell
Latitude CPi.

> This would make a nice linux computer except that
>
> 1. In text mode the characters look really bad, like they are less
> than VGA resolution (like what you get when you enlarge a small
> photo of text to a larger area). zgv also displays awful looking
> jpegs, smeared.

What is the native resolution of the panel? It is likely trying to
scale everything up to its resolution with a crude algorithm (my
old laptop did this, too).

> 2. Xvesa worked (800x600x12) but the resolution was again awful,
> and on exit I got a bunch of stripes (greenish, I think vertical
> but not sure) which invaded all the terminals. I have not checked
> config.sys.

Again, eerily similar.

> When it boots into DOS it says:
> MagicGraph 128XD 48K SVGA - 48K what?
> Configuring Panel 01 16-bit

This must be a NeoMagic card? 48K is a model number?

> The video is VESA 2.0 so Xvesa should have worked. I am going to
> try the vesafb kernel and see if it produces better text, also
> xfbdev, and then Steven's svga package instead of Xvesa.

My laptop worked perfectly with vesafb.

> The computer is a Gateway with the Windows logo on the cover and
> Windows keys, obviously not designed to be run outside of graphics
> mode. It seems to do 1024 res at 256 colors.
>
> 200MHz, 48MB RAM, 2G hard drive, choice of internal floppy/external
> CD-ROM or vice versa. A prize if it can be made to display in
> better resolution outside of Windows. It seems to have come with
> Win95, judging from the CDs and certificates given to us with it,
> but now runs Win98 (after about 10 minutes). No other known
> hardware problems besides the screen.
>
> Has anyone else run into this model computer or video?

I have run into a similar issue. My recommendation is to try vesafb
at the highest mode the graphics combination can support.

David

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