Now OT, Was Re: Thinkpad 770ED, Debian Sarge, new XFree 4.2.1

[Darin Strait <darin_strait@yahoo.com>]

Bummer. Perhaps I should subscribe to one of the X-specific lists and
bug them. I was lurking on one or two of them for a while, but I would
get buried in posts. Would anyone suggest the debian-x list, or the real
xfree86 list (anyone have an address handy for that)?

On the positive side, with all of this poking around, I have managed to
get my docked configuration (fixed my mouse problem by plugging my USB
mouse into a different port on the docking station). So, when I'm
docked, things are hunky-dory, if not transportable.

But, I've got follow-on questions (nothing like a newbie to be a pest):

1. How can I tell if I'm using all of the accleration that is possible? 
2. Is there some benchmarking application that I can use? 
3. If I splurge and get a ATI 7500 PCI card, am I going to see any
improvement? I intend to get a large LCD display sometime in the next
six months. What new issues can I expect with that?

I found glxgears, and tried that  but I get the same value from my fancy
3DFX Voodoo card as I do from my laptop (both bounce between 40 and 50
FPS). It's not impossible that the two cards are roughly equivalent, but
it seems fairly low on a probability scale. What kind of values should I
expect on what was once (in 1998) a fairly snazzy 366 MHz laptop?

tia,
-d


On Wed, 2002-11-13 at 13:17, Jeremy Petzold wrote:
> wow......hmmm.....I am stumped then sorry....try apt-get remove
> xserver-xfree86 and then comment out the sources in your apt sources that
> you got x 4.2.1 from and get x from stable...see what happens when you go
> back to 4.1....if it stays the same, I would have to think that you have a
> hardware issue since it worked fine before.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Darin Strait" <darin_strait@yahoo.com>
> To: "Jeremy Petzold" <jpetzold@earthlink.net>
> Cc: <debian-laptop@lists.debian.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 9:32 AM
> Subject: Re: Thinkpad 770ED, Debian Sarge, new XFree 4.2.1
> 
> 
> > I tried to uxe dpkg-reconfigure, but I never saw a question about the
> > frame buffer. So, I went in and changed the
> >
> > Option "UseFBDev" "true"
> >
> > to:
> >
> > Option "UseFBDev" "false"
> >
> > and:
> > HorizSync 28-49
> > VertRefresh 43-72
> >
> > to:
> > HorizSync 30-70
> > VertRefresh 50-90
> >
> > There was no noticable effect.
> >
> > What else can I try, short of removing all of my X packages and
> > reinstalling everything? I assume that I'll have to reinstall anything
> > that depends on X, like gnome, kde, openoffice, gnucash, etc., so I
> > really don't want to do that.
> >
> > -d
> >
> > On Tue, 2002-11-12 at 22:49, Jeremy Petzold wrote:
> > > try not using the kernel frame buffer. reconfigure the xserver-xfree86
> > > package and when you get to the part that asks about the framebuffer,
> say
> > > no. see where that gets you. some times that could hose your system.
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Jeremy Petzold" <jpetzold@earthlink.net>
> > > To: "Darin Strait" <darin_strait@yahoo.com>;
> > > <debian-laptop@lists.debian.org>
> > > Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 10:34 PM
> > > Subject: Re: Thinkpad 770ED, Debian Sarge, new XFree 4.2.1
> > >
> > >
> > > > did you do a "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" and a
> "dpkg-reconfigure
> > > > xserver-comon"?
> > > > see if that fixes it.
> > > >
> > > > also, what is your videocard? and how much ram does it have? X allows
> you
> > > to
> > > > specify more ram than your card actualy has if it is AGP and use
> system
> > > > resources to help in display.
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Darin Strait" <darin_strait@yahoo.com>
> > > > To: <debian-laptop@lists.debian.org>
> > > > Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 8:21 PM
> > > > Subject: Thinkpad 770ED, Debian Sarge, new XFree 4.2.1
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > I let my machine upgrade to the new XFree packages tonight, and my X
> is
> > > > > hosed.
> > > > >
> > > > > X does run (it might even be a little bit faster :-/), but it seems
> as
> > > > > if it's picked an improper color depth for the hardware -- the
> display
> > > > > looks solarized, sort of. The colors are wrong, but I can manipulate
> > > > > windows and my familiarity with my WindowMaker menu lets me remember
> > > > > where my stuff is. Clearly, this needs to be fixed, though.
> > > > >
> > > > > XFree doesn't seem to care what color depth I run at -- at each
> depth I
> > > > > tried I find that my colors are slightly differently wrong. For
> example,
> > > > > my xload, which is usually a black graph on a white background is
> now a
> > > > > grey graph on a black background. At a different color depth, the
> colors
> > > > > would be different, but still wrong.
> > > > >
> > > > > One thing I notice is that what should be gradual fades from one
> color
> > > > > to another, through many subtle shades, (like title bars, or the
> > > > > splashscreen from KDE) have been reduced to repeating patterns of
> > > > > unsubtle shades.
> > > > >
> > > > > What to do? I'm only moderately clued-in as far as X goes, but I've
> > > > > dpkg-reconfigured and apt-get remove/apt-get updated a few things
> with
> > > > > absolutely no progress.
> > > > >
> > > > > (I did fix my pex5 unresolved symbol error, though.)
> > > > >