[28] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Long message about the new video card
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Salvatore Valente)
Mon Jul 5 02:24:28 1993
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 93 04:01 EDT
From: svalente@mit.edu (Salvatore Valente)
To: linux-dev@athena.mit.edu
Hi. We have the new vga card for Keesh (an ATI Ultra). It's sitting
in the back of the room. The reason it is not installed:
XFree1.2 (what we are currently running) does not support this card.
(I knew that was the case. XFree 1.2 doesn't support any accellerated
cards.) We have the hacked version of XFree1.1 that does support ATI
ultra. Using that, I was able to start X in 1024x768 mode. I was
impressed by how good it looked but completely unimpressed with the
speed.
The main problem: X8514 does not seem to support our Logitech serial
mouse. If it did, I'd probably have the card installed dispite the
other problems with the card.
The card came with an ATI bus mouse. I was unsuccessful getting that
to work at all. The file /home/root/x8514/README.2ND claims that this
mouse should be device (10, 3), which is /dev/bmouseatixl. However,
when I tried to start x (either X server) with that set as the mouse
port, it told me something like "cant open mouse." "strings /Image"
implies that we do have busmouse support compiled in. Oh well.
An other problem: XFree 1.1 sucks. There is no way to cycle video
modes, and the only way to swicth virtual consoles is to kill the X
server.
Coincidentally, just today I got this message:
From: Kevin Martin <martin@cs.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: X support for ATI Ultra
To: svalente@MIT.EDU (Salvatore Valente)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 13:55:22 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <...> from "Salvatore Valente" at May 12, 93 02:14:00 am
I appologize for the extremely long delay in replying to your message.
The status of the accelerated server is that there is a version
available for the ATI Graphics Ultra series (and Vantage) video cards.
It is called Xlinux8514 (or X8514) and is available on tsx-11, sunsite
and other standard ftp sites. Hopefully it will be included in the
one of the next releases of XFree86 (possibly release 2.0).
Hope this helps,
Kevin
___
Kevin E. Martin University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
martin@cs.unc.edu Department of Computer Science
If anyone wants to reinstall the new card and try to get X8514 to work
with either one of the mice, good luck.
I'm hoping XFree 2.0 comes out some time soon, and that it supports
ATI Ultra, and that it works with the serial mouse, and that the world
becomes an all around better place.
Have a nice day.
/* Sal Valente <svalente@athena.mit.edu> */
/* All opinions stated here are shared by my school, my employer, my */
/* friends, my family, a large group of people I've never met, the */
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