Baslinux mailing list

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

----- 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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