SiS630 - new framebuffer driver
Hello everyone,
I don't know if you keep up the with current development regarding SiS
VGA devices, so excuse me if I bug you with information you already
have.
The situation is like this:
A couple of days ago, I received a new version if the sisfb from SiS
themselves.
This new version of sisfb, of course, refused to work on my machine, and
looking through the code, I saw that it contained the exact same bugs as
the old version.
However, the root problem the old driver had, namely that the LVDS
tables were all empty (which made it impossible that the driver ever
worked on a LVDS machine), is gone; there are lots of tables for about
30 different LCD panel types/brands/models.
What I did was do the same patches to the code that I had made to the
old linux kernel driver, and after a short while I could make the new
driver run on my machine. WITHOUT READING THE BIOS. (8bit modes still
don't work, though).
The most important thing is: The new sisfb also contains support for the
upcoming SiS650 chipset.
Since the X driver only supports 630 and compatibles (540,300; aside
from the old 530 series) I intend to include the mode switching
functions of sisfb into the X driver in order to support newer chipsets
as well.
I WILL ONLY DO THIS IF sisfb's FUNCTIONS REALLY WORK ON ALL MACHINES!
Therefore, I really need to know if the new sisfb works on your
machines.
Please, please, please try the new sisfb with all 16 and 32 bit modes
(640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and eventually 1280x1024; notably NOT
1280x960) and report
a) if the old driver (pre 28/01/02) worked on your machine, AND
b) if the new driver works.
Please include the relevant part of the syslog and the output of "lspci
-vvv" with your reports.
My progress with the X driver depends on your results!
Known problems with sisfb are:
1) 1280x960 doesn't work yet; the driver (and I) don't know about the
refresh rates used for this mode. Accoding to the code, this seems to be
an interlace mode, but yet I haven't heard of any machine where this
mode actually works.
2) The 8 bit modes don't work correctly; they only show a very dark
image on the LCD.
3) On Clevo/Kapok machines (that is if lspci -vv says something like
"Subsystem: Clevo/Kapok") I heard that sometimes the console gets a
shade of blue all over; so far I can only guess that this has something
to do with the refresh rate. If you have such a machine, test this by
starting X after having started sisfb and switching back to the console
(or quitting X).
Please do always include the relevant part of syslog with your reports.
Thanks in advance,
Thomas
PS: The new driver is available at
http://www.webit.com/tw/linuxsis630.shtml
PPS: Installation remark for sisfb: The archive contains a file names
"sisfb.h" which must be copied over the old one in
[kernel-tree]/include/linux - NOTE: NOT sis.h, BUT sisfb.h
--
Thomas Winischhofer
Vienna/Austria
mailto:tw@webit.com *** http://www.webit.com/tw
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