On Monday 01 September 2003 04:23, Andrew McCall wrote:

	I know I already replied to the other Andrew, but as you asked specific 
questions about the video, and I just figured out how to get the case 
fully open so I could find out what was in there.

> It might help if you explain a little about the hardware you are using
> - What system is it? Does it have on-board video or is it supplied via

	Ok, as in the Subject line, it's a Power Macintosh 8600, 200MHz.  It's 
got 64MB memory and no (count 'em, zero) PCI cards.  :)  The video is 
on-board, and lists in /proc/pci as "Apple Computer Inc. Control Video".  
From other sources I've gathered I must use the "fbdev" device for 
XFree86, and indeed if I go that way I can get something other than "No 
screens found" when start X -- it puts the monitor into power-save mode.  
(I assume it's trying to do something the monitor, Apple Multiple Scan 
1705, doesn't like, so it shuts down... but it could simply be that 
there's no video signal at that point.)

	(I do have a couple of PCI video cards around here, but I haven't been 
bold enough to try one in there.  They are, after all, from the PC 
world.)

Excerpt from XF86Config:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Apple Control Video via fbdev"
    Driver      "fbdev"
    # [nwch] I don't think VideoRam is valid with fbdev
    #VideoRam    2048
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
    Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0"
    # Option "shadow" "on"
    # Option "rotate" "off"
EndSection

	I investigated "fbset", but I can't see that it makes any difference; the 
same thing happens whether I use it or not.

	One thing I'm not clear on is whether any kernel modules need to be 
loaded to use X via framebuffer.  This new kernel has built-in support 
for "Control", "Platinum", and "Valkyrie", and because I was using the 
"shotgun method" I also built modules for ATI and Matrox.  I can see now 
that I don't need the ATI & Matrox modules, and I suspect that "Control" 
is my generic Apple video.  I've got two fb modules, "fbcon-vga-planes.o" 
and "vga16fb.o" that I'm not really sure about.  fbcon-vga-planes loads 
without complaint, but vga16fb complains that it can't allocate memory.

> you using any kernel arguments wih the program you are booting with? I
> think you can type something like append video=0 or something to force
> the video to work.

	Either video=0 or video=fb works, which are the only things I've tried so 
far.  Eventually I'll try without that argument, just for variety, but 
for now that setting (fb) is saved.  The utility is BootX, which is 
necessary for "old world" Macs.  Once everything is working, I may try 
setting up Quik so I can remove MacOS 7.55 from there entirely and use 
both drives to the fullest.  (Total of 6GB storage on this guy, of which 
2GB are formatted HFS.  /usr/portage/distfiles is on the HFS side, BTW, 
but since nothing on there can be chmod +x I can only use it for storage, 
and not for anything that needs to be executable.)

> Hope with this extra info someone will be able to help!

	I've been making progress with the ideas from here, the Gentoo forums, 
and elsewhere.  This bit of success has inspired me to work harder on the 
rest of it!  :)

-- 
// Carl Hudkins :: Jabber yther@... :: PGP 50238D9E
//
// "German beer is chemical-free / Germany's all right with me!"
//                                --"Why Aye Man", Mark Knopfler