Troubles upgrading from 200 MHz P2 to 400 MHz G3...

[Tovar <tvr@usermail.com>]

I have a PowerMac 9500 with an XLR8 400 MHz G3, 384 mgs RAM, IXMicro video 
card and an Adaptec wide-SCSI card, which i have up and running LINUX with
several annoying glitches.

  * The ix3D card only seems to work in Mac frame buffer mode and thus
    cannot change resolution.  My vision is such that i need to be able
    to change screen resolution under X windows.

  * Two different multi-button ADB mice only send button 1.  Some kernels
    don't seem to find either if not configured properly.

  * The AIC7xxx driver either faults (2.2.18) or claim a resource conflict
    of undetermined nature (2.4.0).  I think this is an AHA-2940/AW (or
    something like that, my notes are at home).

I've tried several kernels and none seem to give readable results on the
ix3D.  Most show a series of 2-8 crude images of penguins and LOTS of 
random dots instead of readable text on boot up in none-Mac display mode.
Many kernels won't compile for me (get undef's, etc.).  I also tried an 
S3 Trio64V+, but MacOS won't recognize it and i don't know how to boot
from floppy and/or via Quik yet.

I'm not sure if the ADB mouse problem is worth pursuing, as i could get a
USB wheel-mouse for about an hour's worth of my time.  (I suppose the video 
card problem might be amenable to that kind of solution as well.)

The messages i get from trying to run the wide-SCSI card are uninformative
at best.  I've not gotten around to putting in printf's and doing other such
driver debugging techniques, as i was hoping to avoid that.  I can't tell,
for example, if MacOS has set up the PCI bus in a manner that LINUX doesn't
know how to deal with (and hence the resource conflict).  (Unlike a couple of
days ago, at least it finds the card!)

Questions:

   * What kernel and/or what driver runs the ix3D properly (if any)?

   * Is the ixMicro card even worth bothering with?  If not, which modestly
     priced video cards are Mac-compatable and LINUX-friendly?  (I don't
     care how well they work for games, as i don't play them.)

   * Can one dual-boot with 'Quik'?  If so, will LINUX then recognize the
     S3 Trio64V+ which MacOS can't deal with?  Is it then more likely to
     handle the AHA-2940 (or whatever) properly?

   * Are ADB mice worth messing with, or should i just go USB.  Which ADB
     mice are real 3 button mice (which the 'Whale Mouse' appears not to
     be, from i can tell so far from WWW searching)?

   * Which kernels via Debian.org will properly compile for my configuration
     (or any, for that matter)?  Should i go to a non-Debian kernel, and if
     so, which one?

   * Any clues for getting the AHA-2940 to work properly via BootX?

Hopefully, only two or three of these are FAQ-type inquiries.  Some of these
may generate (de-generate into) discussion of the merits of various approaches.
I'm not sure i want to generate that much list traffic, so please reply direct
on such matters and i'll summarize for the net.

       -- Tovar  (who remembers when there were only four UNIX boxes on the 'Net)