framebuffer w/tp760el and trident

[Pat Mahoney <pat7@gmx.net>]

I have an IBM thinkpad 760el with a Trident Cyber9385 (as reported by
SuperProbe; I think it has other names like TGUI9660).  It has 1024Kb video
ram.  That's enough for 800x600x16.

I am trying to get framebuffer running so that I can get 800x600 text mode
and use the full 12.1 in display.  It does not work when I compile it into
the kernel.  On boot up it merely says VGA 80x25.  I suspected my bios is
not vesa 2.0 compliant, but when I set kernel to vga=ask, it says VESA
somewhere in there (not sure exactly where).  When I probe for more modes,
it finds none.  Entering standard vesa modes returns "invalid mode."

I talked to IBM and the technician told me that vesa 2.0 is a very old
standard.  My laptop was made in 1993.

If I compile the VGA framebuffer (16 color), I get a boot logo :) (which, at
the end of the boot process, changes to messed up colors??).  But I cannot
get to 800x600 using fbset.  It says "ioctl FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO: Invalid
argument"  When I change fb.modes to use 4 bit color instead of 8, then it
"works."  I guess that makes sense because VGA 16 wouldn't support 8 bit
color....

So in 4 bit, things happen, but I get a corrupt screen, I see the very left
edge three and a half times.  I am using my converted X-modeline.  X runs
fine in 800x600x(8|16).

Is it possible to use vesa framebuffer on this laptop/video card?  Am I
doing anything wrong?

-- 
Pat Mahoney	<pat7@gmx.net>

For children with short attention spans: boomerangs that don't come back.