From: scottd@cs.hw.ac.uk (Scott Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux Subject: X and supported VGA cards. Date: 7 May 92 11:39:45 GMT Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland Could someone please post a list of suported cards. The only chipset that seems to be mentioned is the et4000. I don't know of all the different chipsets and I don't have a clue what's on my card - an Orchid Pro Designer II. I`ll have a look tonight. Assuming the Pro Designer is not supported is there anyone working on a driver for it? I believe it's quite a good card. At least, in it's price bracket. Whether or not my card is supported, it would clear up a lot of questions if a definitive list was posted. 5 megs is a lot to ftp :-) Further, what is wrong with 800x600x16. That's the resolution I used (past tense) MS-Windows in. The extra colours add a considerable overhead, and unless your wanting to display nice gifs in the background I don't really see the need for them. (OK I've now got my flak jacket on - hit me :-) ) How difficult is it to write a driver for X. If no-one is planning to write one for the Pro Designer I **might** look into it this summer. Athough I doubt if I'll get anywhere. Cheers, Scott.
From: obz@sisd.kodak.com (Orest Zborowski COMP) Subject: Re: X and supported VGA cards. Date: 8 May 92 22:41:03 GMT scottd@cs.hw.ac.uk (Scott Dunn) writes: >Could someone please post a list of suported cards. >The only chipset that seems to be mentioned is the >et4000. I don't know of all the different chipsets >and I don't have a clue what's on my card - an >Orchid Pro Designer II. I`ll have a look tonight. >Assuming the Pro Designer is not supported is there >anyone working on a driver for it? I believe it's >quite a good card. At least, in it's price bracket. >Whether or not my card is supported, it would clear >up a lot of questions if a definitive list was posted. >5 megs is a lot to ftp :-) the stock x11r5 release of x386 (on which the linux port was based) only supports et3000, et4000, pvga1 and gvga. i've heard of pd extensions to the trident chip and maybe others, but haven't gotten around to trying them. > >Further, what is wrong with 800x600x16. That's the >resolution I used (past tense) MS-Windows in. The >extra colours add a considerable overhead, and unless >your wanting to display nice gifs in the background >I don't really see the need for them. (OK I've now >got my flak jacket on - hit me :-) ) the x386 server uses packed 8-bit mode by default. changing this would probably be quite a job, and i've heard that there is no guarantee that all x applications would honor the restricted mode (which i consider a limitation of the app). > >How difficult is it to write a driver for X. If >no-one is planning to write one for the Pro Designer >I **might** look into it this summer. Athough I >doubt if I'll get anywhere. depends on how well you know your chip and how closely it maps onto the model assumed by the default distribution. the drivers for the chips themselves are not very large, but they are all very similar. i don't have access to these different chips (nor have any intention to support them), so you're kindof on your own. > >Cheers, > >Scott. some random ramblings... my original intent was to provide x386 to a limited readership. i guess it was my own fault for not restricting this more forcefully (could it have been my intention :-)... i wanted to make sure that it worked more often than not, that most of the fatal bugs were fixed, and that people who wanted to obtain a binary version of the server and clients could do so (compiling x386 is not a one-night affair, unless you count all-night!). since more and more people are discovering this "hidden" location of the x386 port, i've placed my diffs on banjo.concert.net for others to work with. these diffs are against a partial version of the x11r5 release of x386, since i didn't have that much space and wanted to get down to a bare minimum. with the tremendous advances made with gcc2.1 and linux0.96 the problems associated with creating a full-fledged distribution should be minimized. i've been using x386 almost constantly since i finished the port and it seems to run very well (for my needs). a friend has successfully ported xv, xmail, spider and other clients, which has boosted my confidence in the port. there are problems with it, the greatest one being the screen blanking after the server exits. i've not gotten around to trying some solutions to the x386 server itself (which only affect the et4000 version) nor applying the brute-force solution of writing a program (possibly using the vgalib posted) which resets text mode. has anyone run x386 without an et4000? and had the screen not blank out? i'm probably going to wait until linux0.96 before working some more on the server (it's been a long time of hacking nonstop and am getting more pressure at work :-), since linus is running x386 and has solved some of the kernel related problems with pty's, etc. hopefully at this time the x shared libs will be working (i'm running a few clients with shared libs and their sizes are stunning!), so we can begin with a "real" distribution of x386. zorst [obz@sisd.kodak.com] -- zorst (orest zborowski) [reply to obz@sisd.kodak.com]