Multi head setups on PCI Ultra SPARC systems
Hi,
I'm looking to set up a multi-head (ideally >= 3) system using an
UltraSPARC board with PCI slots. As I see it the problems / solutions
are:
*. On PCs multiple graphics cards tend to clash address ranges - I am
under the impression this doesn't occur with Sun kit.
*. Most PC graphics cards require some BIOS code to be run. This should
be able to be circumvented by:
1. Using cards with OpenBoot PROMs (IE official Sun graphics cards).
2. Using cards which can be set to not require any from the BIOS (IE
Matrox Millenium)
3. Using the BIOS emulation in the latest versions of XFree
*. Linux/SPARC XFree86 only has drivers for a handful of graphics cards
(i/c some PC ones if I understand correctly). The solution is to use
framebuffer support in the kernel and the unaccelerated fbdev driver in
XFree86
Considering all of this what I'm considering is fitting the Box with one
Sun PCI graphics card (so it has something to boot on) and adding
several Matrox Millenium cards (jumpered so they don't require BIOS
initialisation). If this works I might look at replacing the Matrox
cards with something more modern, if I can find cards that don't need
BIOS initialisation and have either a frame buffer or a Linux/SPARC
XFree86 driver (in stable I think this is ATI Rage, Rage 128, Radeon and
Glint).
Has anyone tried this? Is it possible? Is there (some|any)thing I
haven't thought of? Can anyone suggest newer PC graphics cards that fit
the above requirement? Would I be better off looking at DRI?
Sweet Dreams,
- Martin
PS if anyone could enlighten me as to the use of the atimisc driver
(which doesn't seem to be documented on the XFree86 site) I'd love to
know.
--
Martin
inkubus@interalpha.co.uk
"Seasons change, things come to pass"
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