[342] in linux-announce channel archive
SVGATextMode version 0.7: less buggy?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lars Wirzenius)
Tue Mar 28 00:45:42 1995
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 07:40:04 +0300
From: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
To: linux-activists@niksula.hut.fi, linux-announce@vger.rutgers.edu
X-Mn-Key: announce
From: kmg@barco.be
Subject: SVGATextMode version 0.7: less buggy?
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Keywords: SVGA VGA console text screen monitor clock
Organization: ?
Approved: linux-announce@news.ornl.gov (Lars Wirzenius)
Followup-to: comp.os.linux.setup
Yo!
Here we are again: I squeezed out a new version of SVGATextMode again.
No big new features this time, just a few fixes that needed to get done...
Users of SVGATextMode 0.6 and a Cirrus Logic card will be happy to know that
the error about "no clock programming method defined" is gone. I seem to get
to like bugs, since I put so many in it...
Also, finally, hopefully, the problem with ICD2061 clock chips (the blank
screen, and SVGATextMode not working) is HISTORY. I'm not sure, but at least
one person had some sort of success with it...
For those competely unfamiliar with SVGATextMode: here's the LSM file:
Begin3
Title: SVGA textmode manipulation/enhancement
Version: 0.7
Entered-date: 27MAR95
Description: Uses extra features found in all SVGA video cards to enhance
Linux text modes independently of what the BIOS can do. It is
configured with an XF86Config-like file, and allows setting of
pixel clock, H/V timings, font size, cursor size, etc. Now you
can use your video card AND your monitor to the MAX in
textmode, as you used to do in XWindows. Current support
includes S3, ET4000, Cirrus Logic, Trident, Western Digital,
ATI and Video7 (Headland techn.) cards. It can also use an
external clock program. Supports S3 special clock chips
(largely untested). Includes: palette changer, clock probe,
text/graphics mode grabber (for Linux and DOS), automatic font
loading, monitor definition (H/V frequency limits).
Keywords: SVGA VGA console text screen monitor clock
Author: kmg@barco.be (Koen Gadeyne)
Maintained-by: kmg@barco.be (Koen Gadeyne)
Primary-site: sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux/utils/console (or "incoming")
220k SVGATextMode-0.7.tar.gz
Alternate-site: tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux/sources/sbin (or "incoming")
Original-site:
Platform: Linux PC with one of the supported VGA cards, kernel 1.1.54 or newer.
Copying-policy: Freely Redistributable
End
And a brief list of changes relative to version 0.6:
27 MAR 1995 - Version 0.7
- changed external clock program calling to comply with XFREE3.x method: now
takes MHz as an argument instead of kHz.
- To be more compatible with the XFREE configuration, you must now ALWAYS
define a clocks line. Even when using a Cirrus card, a clock chip or an
external clock program. In these three cases, you can define ANY number of
clocks of any value on the clocks line (as long as they are within range
of what your VGA chip can handle).
This also burries another really idiotic bug that caused the Cirrus Logic
cards to fail with the message "Internal error: No clock programming
defined. Please complain to the author...". Which is what many people did :-(
- quick hack by Stephen Lee: textmodeselect. A dialog-based mode selector.
- !!!maybe, just maybe, the infamous ICD2061 programming problem is HISTORY!
it used to give a segmentation fault, due to its reading of IO address
0x200, which wasn't given IO permissions by SVGATextMode...
- Reuben Sumner provided a neat function to do AUTOMATIC VT resizing. So
now you don't need the "terminals" line anymore: this function finds out
by itself what VT's are active, and resizes them.
This has the added advantage that putting tty7 and tty8 in the "Terminals"
line doesn't activate them (which TIOCSWINSZ does), so X cannot use them,
and fails when starting up, telling you it cannot open /dev/tty9 (when you
have 8 VT's defined).
Note that this function will be overridden if a "Terminals" line is
specified. This will allow you to override the "intelligent" behaviour of
SVGATextMode, and define which VT's you want resized (and which not).
- changed "open" mode for terminal devices from read/write to write only.
This avoids a permission problem on most machines when running SUID.
Enjoy!
Koen.
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