Baslinux mailing list

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
 
> > 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.
> 
> It is at 800/16 dpi now. The same resolution in BL3 (800x600x12, 
> which proably means 15-bit) with swm did not have a brightness 
> problem, but neither did Windows for a while.  Windows does not 
> offer 15-bit.
> 
> Should I try 640 in Windows or 1024?
> 
> Also, in Windows, if I tilt the screen slowly sometimes it 
> brightens for a second or two.  This suggests a power problem to me.

Oh. I thought it was a similar problem that I had. Mine only happened
with certain resolutions (it looked like an interlaced TV). It sounds
like yours is not the same problem.

> > 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).
> 
> How would I know this?  Do you mean it is something less than 640 
> (320?) and displaying text in graphical mode with 1/4 as many 
> pixels per character, but badly enlarged without smoothing?  It 
> looks sort of like a bad fax.

The native resolution is usually the maximum that you can select.
In your case, I would guess that it is 1024x768. This algorithm
is horrible; you should avoid it, if you can, by switching modes
or (see below about the BIOS option)

> > This must be a NeoMagic card? 48K is a model number?
> 
> Thanks, I will look this up. ------ I read about Neomagic video 
> chips, as found in Gateway and Sony Vaio.  128XD - 128-bit 
> accelerator.  Some later chips have 2MB (1999) or 3MB RAM, mine 
> probably only 1MB.  I am guessing it is 1998.

Mine had 2MB, IIRC. It could do 1024x768x65536 max.

> Xfree86 4 has a neomagic driver.  For Xfree86 3.3.6 use the svga 
> driver. Good chance to try out Steven's at 800x600 and 256 colors 
> if xfbdev works as well as Xvesa.

If your screen can only do 1024x768x8, you will likely bump into the
vesa/kdrive 8-bit problem. Your best option may be to use Steven's
package. Second best is to build or find a kernel with NeoMagic
framebuffer support (yes, such a driver does exist).

> There was a question in CMOS about whether to make it full screen 
> horizontal and vertical.  If I answered no I might have got a nice 
> looking smaller screen at 320.

It's definitely much nicer looking to have a letterbox instead of a
horribly blurred display. My old laptop had an option like this,
only I could change it on the fly by hitting a button combination.
Fn+one of the number buttons, which had a logo that looked like two
capital letter A's, one in italic and one in boldface font (the idea
is that it changes the way text looks)

> > My laptop worked perfectly with vesafb.
> 
> Good to know.  Will try this tomorrow.  First we need to figure out 
> why the 40GB drive someone else gave us won't work with DOS or 
> Windows, some problem with FAT tables, at least when formatting 
> with FreeDOS, and whether it will let us install linux/lilo. It 
> works some of the time with DOS and Windows (even installed Win98 
> once but not before or after). Having Windows on a laptop was to 
> try out a friend's wireless card so as to detect if any neighbors 
> have DSL and ask to share it.  Easier to carry around the house 
> (apart from not being able to read the LCD screen - maybe we can 
> power the 9" mono VGA with a battery?) in case reception is better 
> in some room.  I will check if the list discussed BL with wireless 
> PCMCIA card.

You will need a newer kernel, as usual. What brand of wireless card?
If it's supported by this Mandrake kernel I have here, I can email
this kernel to you.

About the 9" screen, is this a backlight problem?

> > I have run into a similar issue. My recommendation is to try vesafb
> > at the highest mode the graphics combination can support.
> 
> 1024 256 colors.  The screen might be 11-12".
> 
> 132 columns (1024 res) should give slightly bigger characters than 
> 320 resolution and 80 columns in half the screen (if I answered NO 
> in CMOS to fill the screen).
> 
> If that fails, perhaps Xsvga and rxvt would produce readable text.
> 
> There is a PDA to go with it once she finds it, working, with 
> keyboard, stylus and documentation.

David

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