From: Geert Uytterhoeven <Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 13:03:20 +0200 (CEST)

Re: set_mode complexity

On Wed, 8 Jul 1998, Marcus Sundberg wrote:
> And we SHOULD have a configuration file like SET
> suggested, only that:
> * It should be ascii - not binary!
> * The format should be like XFree modelines so you
>   just have to copy your existing values when you
>   change to GGI.
> * It should be read by libggi, not the kernel!
> * There should be a global /etc/ggi/timings.conf
>   and users should be able to override the values
>   in a ~/.ggi/timimgs.conf file (which is ok as
>   KGI still checks that the mode is valid)
> * If an app tries to set a mode that's not listed
>   in the config-file, drivers will negotiate the mode
>   just like they do now.
> * Apps should be able to override the values in the
>   config-files, but this can be turned off by setting
>   an environment variable (to protect users from braindead
>   binary-only apps)
>  
> We should also have a program like xvidtune (tunemode? what
> does that do?) to tweak modes and write config-files for
> people who don't want to calculate timings with xcalc. ;)

This is exactly what fbset does for frame buffer devices. It uses an ASCII mode
database in /etc/fb.modes. The modelines are not XFree86 compatible, but fbset
has an option to convert them to XFree86-style modelines.

A sample mode database (based on data from the ATI docs):

    http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/bin/aty/fb.modes.gz

Greetings,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven                     Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Wavelets, Linux/{m68k~Amiga,PPC~CHRP}  http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/
Department of Computer Science -- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven -- Belgium