helping my dad with X configuration, long distance

From: Ben Crowell (croDELETETHISwell04_at_lightandmatter.com)
Date: 06/28/04

  • Next message: Rudolf Polzer: "Re: Anyone try the X.org port?" 
    Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 22:13:19 -0700

    My father got me started in computing ca. 1980 by buying me a TRS-80, so I
    thought I'd try to return the favor by giving him a commodity PC with
    FreeBSD installed. He is a lawyer, not a programmer. I did most of the
    installation and configuration, and now he and my 13-year-old brother are
    trying to put the finishing touches on. They're both used to Windows.

    They're now trying to improve their X configuration, which is currently
    giving them 8-bit color. The PC (Great Quality brand, from Fry's) came
    with Lindows installed. Before wiping Lindows off the hard disk and
    installing BSD, I checked that the driver it was using was a Linux driver
    called 'savage', and that it did indeed work correctly with more than
    8-bit color. I set up the system in a bit of a hurry, using an LCD
    monitor, and since LCD monitors have fixed resolution, and this monitor
    was a piece of ****, I didn't try getting too fancy with the XF86Config
    file. Below is the file they currently are using. I think I cobbled it
    together from one that I had on another FreeBSD box.

    I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions for how to get 16- or 24-bit color
    working for them, keeping in mind that it's a long-distance thing, and I
    have to talk them through things like doing an 'su' or using emacs
    to edit a text file. More broadly, I'd also like to improve my own skills
    at configuring X windows, which is something I've often had a hard time
    with. What strategies do people use? For instance, where would you go to
    find out whether there's more than one driver for the 'savage' card? I've
    sometimes booted into Knoppix just to see what kind of XF86Config file it
    cooked up, and although that sometimes worked, it sometimes didn't,
    maybe because of different drivers for BSD versus Linux, or different
    versions of X. Sometimes when I try to force X to use higher resolution
    or more bits per pixel, it fails with a not-very-helpful error message on
    the console; what do you do then? Is there good software for automating
    the process more? I understand there used to be something called
    SuperProbe, but now it's part of X...? It seems like Knoppix and SuSE's
    live CD sometimes do a really good job of automatically configuring X
    (better than, e.g., the Debian and FreeBSD installers); is there any way
    to use other software to interrogate the hardware the same way they do? I
    believe SuSE has open-sourced YaST, but I don't know about their X
    configurer, which I think is called Sax2. Does X.org have any plans to
    improve the situation with X configuration?

    TIA!

    ========================================================================

    Section "ServerLayout"
            Identifier "XFree86 Configured"
            Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
            InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
            InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    EndSection

    Section "Files"
            RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
            ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
            FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
            FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
            FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
            FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
            FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
    EndSection

    Section "Module"
            Load "dbe"
            Load "dri"
            Load "extmod"
            Load "glx"
            Load "record"
            Load "xtrap"
            Load "speedo"
            Load "type1"
    EndSection

    Section "InputDevice"
            Identifier "Keyboard0"
            Driver "keyboard"
    EndSection

    Section "InputDevice"
            Identifier "Mouse0"
            Driver "mouse"
            Option "Protocol" "auto"
            Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
    EndSection

    Section "Monitor"

            #DisplaySize 290 210 # mm
            Identifier "Monitor0"
            VendorName "GVT"
            ModelName " L4BX"
            VertRefresh 50-61
            Modeline "640x480" 25.175 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525
            Option "DPMS"
    EndSection

    Section "Device"

            ### Available Driver options are:-
            ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
            ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
            ### [arg]: arg optional
            #Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
            #Option "HWCursor" # [<bool>]
            #Option "SWCursor" # [<bool>]
            #Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
            #Option "Rotate" # [<str>]
            #Option "UseBIOS" # [<bool>]
            #Option "LCDClock" # <freq>
            #Option "ShadowStatus" # [<bool>]
            #Option "CrtOnly" # [<bool>]
            #Option "TvOn" # [<bool>]
            #Option "PAL" # [<bool>]
            #Option "ForceInit" # [<bool>]
            Identifier "Card0"
            Driver "savage"
            VendorName "S3 Inc."
            BoardName "[ProSavageDDR K4M266]"
            BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
    EndSection

    Section "Screen"
            Identifier "Screen0"
            Device "Card0"
            Monitor "Monitor0"
            SubSection "Display"
                    Depth 8
                    Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
            EndSubSection
            SubSection "Display"
                    Depth 16
                    Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
            EndSubSection
    EndSection

  • Next message: Rudolf Polzer: "Re: Anyone try the X.org port?"

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