Baslinux mailing list

[baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org]

nOn Thu, 8 Nov 2007, baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> > Our only computer that would take a 1.0GHz Intel cpu has onboard i810 and
> > no AGP slot.  The PCI Rendition video card (that worked perfectly in
> > another computer which has i810 onboard) gives odd error messages with
> > Xvesa and also turns highlighted text invisible in CMOS setup.  Xvesa
> > works with a PCI ATI card but we have Win98 on the same computer and
> > cannot find the right ATI driver, despite downloading some monstrosity
> > that should include all RAGE drivers for all versions of Windows.  The
> > temporary solution is to use onboard i810 with Win98 (4MB driver worked)
> > and switch to PCI card in BIOS to use linux with the ATI card but my
> > partner does not like doing this.
>
> Xvesa works with i810 up to 800x600 16-bit (or 1024 256-bit in odd colors)
> which is tolerable, but the svgalib i810 libvga only does 640 resolution
> or less. I use svgalib-based zgv to view images, svp to view pdf files,
> and links -g if I need to view website inline images.  Lee was so opposed
> to svgalib that he never discovered this.  Maybe agpgart will help svgalib
> too?
>
> X_SVGA should in theory work for 1024 resolution 8-bit.  agpgart was
> suggested for use with it.  It is supposed to make better use of memory
> (maybe increasing it from 1MB to the 4MB used by Windows) which I will try
> to compile.  If it works, no need for the i810 X server, which works with
> kernel 2.4 or later.

Xvesa may be more useful with this module, which also appears not to exist 
for kernel 2.2.  There is also an nvidia nvagp which is faster than 
agpgart for nvidia.  I don't need faster, just more resolution/memory.

To compile the module set CONFIG_AGP=M in character devices if using 
menuconfig (or just after floppy tape if plain config).

You then choose what chipsets to support.  I included ALI, VIA, SIS, ATI 
and NVIDIA which provides GLX and DRI support (whatever that is) and I810 
support which apparently lets up to 204MB of onboard RAM be used for video 
memory and makes the i810 family of video chips useful in linux.  Have not 
yet tested except on this computer where it said the device was not 
present.  It should work with any of my 2.4.31 kernels
http://keesan.freeshell.org/bl/2.4.31
for kernels (bzimasmf.431 is all-purpose) and the module agpgart.o

While making config I ran across a section on Promise Ultra 100 TX2 which 
is what I need to support the add-in PCI IDE controller for use on the 
motherboard which was running hard disks at 2.5MB/sec max burst transfer. 
My partner accidentally killed the board while swapping out cpus trying to 
fix someone else's board, but we will try the card in something else.

Promise Ultra TX2 100.  Someone just gave us a 66. The 100 (in DOS) runs 
hds at up to 66MB/sec which are rated 100MB/sec (as is the card).

You should 'Use PCI DMA by default when available'.

IDE, ATA and ATAPI Block devices, Promise PDC202{68|69... support. Can be 
compiled as a module or in kernel (2.4 only, I think).


> i810 does not support linear framebuffer, meaning we get only 80 col 25
> lines unless we can get other non-framebuffer modes, which tend to be
> quite unstable.  So I will keep hunting for the ATI Windows driver.
>
> Sindi