[TriLUG] slackware and S3 video drivers

stan briggs stan at StanBriggs.com
Sun May 28 15:10:40 EDT 2006


all,

the answer is in the way that these older drivers are recognized by the
OS. when the OS sees an "S3" card it automatically uses the "generic"
driver. putting a entry for the chipset [ ChipSet	"86C365"] forced
the OS to use the proper driver not the generic one.

stan

-----Original Message-----
From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On
Behalf Of Joseph Mack NA3T
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 11:32 AM
To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] slackware and S3 video drivers


On Sun, 28 May 2006, stan briggs wrote:

> all,
>
> i'm thoroughly enjoying my slackware install though i'm still fighting

> the video. i've got an S3 Trio 3D card (yes, it's old) that install 
> and run with the generic S3 drivers giving me the complete breadth of 
> resolution up to, and including, 800x600. when, using xorgconfig, i 
> specify the exact card (right down to the model number [86C365)) it 
> tells me that the card is basically unsupported. can this be possible?

I've been running Slackware since the mid 90's and S3 cards 
for much of this time all at 1024x768. Since I only run text 
(xterms in a 9 window desktop), S3 cards have been fine with 
me.

About "unsupported":

Many drivers for older hardware were not carried through 
after XF86-3.3.6. If you want to run that hardware, you need 
3.3.6 and not XF86-4.x. I'm almost certain this includes S3, 
as I haven't gone to XF86-4.x because of the hardware I 
have, which includes several S3 cards.

Within the 3.3.6 code, unsupported could mean that you run 
the generic VESA driver, rather than the driver for your 
card. I remember setting my machines up as generically as 
possible, so I didn't need different configs for the random 
different video cards I use. In 3.3.6 there are drivers 
which handle a large range of cards and you may just use one 
of them, rather than a specific driver. This wouldn't be my 
definition of "unsupported" though.

Joe
-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml 
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
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