From: becka@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 20:16:16 +0100 (MET)

Re: Installing libGGI -- new ATI card

Hi !

> Building kgicon wasn't a problem, but insmod'ing it complained of an
> undefined __bzero (?!&@!).  Well, I updated my compiler to egcs 1.1.2 and my
> C library to glibc 2.1 and that error goes away.  Instead, when I insmod it
> from the text mode console (vgacon?) the screen just goes white.  Everything
> was still working--I could cat /proc/fb and it read:

> 0 KGI

> Now, I couldn't see anything, mind you  ( cat /proc/fb > fb.out.txt and I
> had to read it after a clean reboot), but kgicon was definately there--just
> not being useful.

I assume this is a problem with the KGI driver. Which one did you use.

Try all-vga for the start.

> Second try:  use the vesafb.  Am I correct in assuming that the fbdev target
> works on top of any fb device, or just kgicon drivers acting like the fb
> device?  I'm assuming the former.  

Right.

> But when I then try to insmod kgicon, the
> screen goes black and shuts off.  Again, my computer doesn't freeze;  I can
> still safely shutdown, but I can't see anything.

When you use VESAfb, you shouldn't use KGIcon. The card may already be in a
weird state, and few drivers handle that gracefully.

> HOWEVER, with vesafb loaded (0 VESA VGA), some demos (demos, flying_ggis,
> and stars) work while the others won't.  

Some might not work due to missing features, some due to the inability to
switch modes, etc.

> I've attached the debug output in
> case someone can tell me why GGI  can't switch modes.

You can't switch modes on VESAfb. The mode is set at bootup while still in
realmode. It can't be changed afterwards.

> My card is an ATI Expert 98 (or Rage 128, I'm still sorting out my
> documentation).  It's apparently too new to be supported by X (documentation
> notwithstanding), 

Oh - no wonder KGI has problems :-).

> Am I doing something wrong? Or is my card just unsupported right now.

I suppose so. Though you should be able to get at least _something_ using
the VESA driver or the KGI VGA driver.

> PS. If this is posted in HTML, please tell me.  I have to do everything from
> Windows for a little while...

No. Works fine.

CU, ANdy

-- 
= Andreas Beck                    |  Email :  <andreas.beck@ggi-project.org> =