Re: Potato/Xfree401/mutlihead problems
On Thu, Jul 20, 2000 at 01:19:58AM +0200, Thomas W. wrote:
>
> > > I need to divide between Bus 0 and Bus 1, since the SRM firmware
> > > gets screwed if it finds multiple VGA-Bioses on Bus 0. It seems it
> > > doesn't try to x86-emulate Boards in Bus 1.
Correct.
Another way is to find cards with a VGA-disable switch; this allows
them to be put on bus 0 and not have the BIOS run. Cards that fit this
criterion are the Millennium I's and ELSA Synergys (Permedia 2) that
we (COMPAQ) have sold in the past. Apparently, most commercial versions
(as opposed to our OEM versions) do NOT have this switch.
> Also, for exactly *that* scenario, XFree uses it's libint10.a, to initialize
> cards that have previously not been initialized by POST procedures.
> I assume, this fixes Alpha conflicts as well.
Yes, it does, I believe.
> However, one question still remains. Has anyone gotten XFree 4.0 running
> multihead+xinerama on Alpha's ?
Multihead, yes (using the above-mentioned Millennium I); I have no idea
about the xinerama stuff, but expect it should work, as much of that was
developed here (DEC).
One other observation: the XFree86 4.0 code is NOT clean WRT handling
cards on multiple primary PCI buses, though it can detect them (as
mentioned in previous postings). The problem area is not the
memory-mapped registers or framebuffers on other than bus 0, but the
use of explicit "legacy" VGA addresses in the code, which will be
forced to bus 0 and NOT the correct bus. We are working on patches for
this situation, and have had some success - one system with an AGP bus
plus 3 PCI buses has had an adapter on each. However, the patches are
not ready for prime time just yet, and do depend on additional kernel
patches to work.
--Jay++
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Jay A Estabrook Alpha Engineering - LINUX Project
Compaq Computer Corp. - MRO1-2/K20 (508) 467-2080
200 Forest Street, Marlboro MA 01752 Jay.Estabrook@compaq.com
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