Re: monochrome cards
In article <199805010323.VAA08260@chaos.coyotesong.com>, Bear Giles
<bear@coyotesong.com> wrote:
> Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> wrote:
>
> >Thats a good point, who actually has a truely MONO screen anymore? [...]
> >I think machines with a mono video card (ie a herc) would be unable to run
> >Debian in the first place, and a greyscale screen doesn't need mono
> >support.
The machine I'm typing this on is an AM386DX-40 with an original,
(c)1983, full-length Hercules Graphics Card, i.e. MDA compatible.
I installed Debian 1.3 on it last fall, and I didn't run into any big
problems. dselect looks nicer when TERM is set to linux-m, but it is
still usable even when TERM=linux (and presumably color codes are used).
A small problem I encountered is that libslang seems to ignore terminfo
and treat linux-m as a color terminal, which more or less screws up
jed/slrn/mutt.
The HGC has a graphics mode, but I don't run X11 there. I did install
MGR for a laugh, though.
I haven't upgraded to 2.0-beta yet.
I would be fairly disappointed if compatibility with MDA were broken for
no good reason, and frankly, I can't imagine a good reason.
> That said, I can't see anyone using a MCA card as his primary
> interface.
I do use it as my primary interface. If you are running in text mode,
VGA isn't inherently better than MDA. Okay, it has colors, but those
aren't an improvement in everybody's book, and MDA can do real
underlining. As far as I am concerned, MDA is supremely ergonomic for
text mode applications. I still have a more modern, single-chip HGC and
a pair of mono monitors stashed away. The alternative would be to use a
real terminal.
> I certainly wouldn't have objected if I had to install a VGA card to
> run the installation program.
I would scream bloody murder.
> How much space would be saved if the MCA code is dropped?
About none.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de
See another pointless homepage at <URL:http://home.pages.de/~naddy/>.
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: