Hello Guillaume,
first of all, please note that I've had Blade 2500 (with OBP version
4.16.4), not 2000. Maybe it doesn't matter, but you can never know - Linux
SPARC drivers aren't tested as well as their x86 counterparts.
Lenny 5.0.2 works for me out of the box (= without any boot parameters it
switches into nice high-resolution graphics mode) so yes, the XVR-500
driver is compiled in.
If you're out of luck even with the recent *stable* Debian release, try boot
with parameter DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive. This switch Debian installer
into "numbered lines mode" menus so you'll be able to navigate simply by
entering a number of an appropriate line you're gonna choose.
Hope it helps.
Regards,
Petr
ps.: just a side note, as I've also needed working X11, I quite cheaply
bought a XVR-100 (a.k.a ATI Radeon with SUN firmware) and it works nice.
Speed is not stellar, but for most common (graphics) programs it's good
enough.
Hi Petr,
Thanks for your quick reply. Following this message, I tried the Debian
(5.0.3) installation this week end. After an issue with the non recognized
FC-AL hard drive, I finally went through.
The graphic display works, but is completely unusable, because of black
lines in the middle of the screen. I think the 2 XVR-500 card are a
possible reason for this, so I still need to investigate.
I also wonder if your were successful to change the resolution (Only the
default 1280 * 1024 is available as of now) ?
Best Regards,
Guillaume
Hi again,
Just for information. I attached a copy of my screen after debian install.
Guillaume
Hi Guillaume,
I didn't try hard running X11 (with xvr500). I guess you use fb driver
or has Xorg released a XVR compatible driver I'm not aware of?
Looking into guts of the driver[1] I suppose the resolution is hardwired
for now. Do those strange black lines happen even if your xorg config has
the same resolution as kernel driver? Have you already tried to use only
one XVR500 card? Try to contact David on Debian-sparc or kernel mail list,
maybe he could help.
Regards,
Petr
[1] http://lxr.linux.no/#linux+v2.6.31/drivers/video/sunxvr500.c
Hi,
Indeed I understood it lately. The driver is the default fbdev provided
with Debian.
I cannot change the resolution (from xorg.cong), so all tests used
native 1280*1024. I also supposed that the probleme may come from
an inappropriate sync frequency for the monitor,but it wasn't succesfull.
I also removed the second XVR-500 to avoid any conflict between cards,
without any result.
X is mandatory for me. I can administrate the workstation from the
command line but browsing the web is a bit more tricky.
I will forward this conversation to David to get his opinion on this,
I think he's clearly aware of this issue.
Guillaume,
From: davem@davemloft.net
Well:
1) Never email me privately, we have a mailing list for users
to ask questions on, sparclinux@vger.kernel.org
And if you post there, then other developers and users
can answer your question when I am very busy with other
tasks like I am now.
2) XVR-500 is not supported with X at the moment, sorry.
The Linux console driver itself was completely reverse
engineered, so you should be happy even that works.
Use a Radeon or ATI mach64 based card in your machine if
you want X.