Re: X server for crappy Packard Hell machine
On Wed, Jul 21, 1999 at 10:15:15PM -0400, Stuart Ballard wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have installed debian slink on an old Packard Hell computer. Most
> things work fine, but the standard XF86_SVGA xserver appears to have
> some problems - it works, sort of, but once the screen gets busy I get
> random pixels going the wrong color. It appears as if video memory is
> sometimes getting randomly corrupted. If I was running windows, I would
> suspect a bad video driver - but I'm not running a video driver.
>
> I am sure that this is a case of crappy hardware, but I also know that
> windows managed to work around it somehow, so it can be done.
>
> Since the only documentation I have on the hardware is a sticker on the
> box which says "1Mb video memory upgradable to 2Mb", I configured X by
> accepting all the defaults I could find, and probing for anything it
> would let me probe for. This, of course, is probably what went wrong.
>
> Does anyone have any tips on how I can figure out how X *should* have
> been configured, or whether it would have been possible to use one of
> the accelerated servers instead of the basic one?
>
One thing I've found about Packard Bell that's nice...
If you go to their web site there's a section under customer service
(I think) where you can enter the serial number for your pc and get
some fairly detailed info about the hardware in it, right down to
the actual chipsets used. It comes in really handy with the older
ones where documentation no longer exists.
HTH,
Mike
[Private mail welcome, but no need to CC: me on list replies.]
--
Michael Merten -- ironfoot@popaccount.com
---> NRA Life Member -- http://www.nra.org
---> Debian GNU/Linux Fan -- http://www.debian.org
---> CenLA-LUG Founder -- http://www.angelfire.com/la2/cenlalug
--
"To this day, it is 1999, isn't the male primarily responsible for
the physical defense of the American home? If you hear a creak on
the floor downstairs in the middle of the night, the woman never
says, 'Let me check.' You have to check. ... I mean, give me a break!
The reason men are more pro-gun is because they are responsible for
the physical protection of the American home."
--CNBC's Chris Matthews on the gun control "gender gap."
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