FB Radeon with Apple Cinema Display

Wed May 22 22:16:01 2002

try the video=radeon:dfp it worked on my G4 Cube with an apple 
supplied radeon 32mb card.

>Nope. To be honest, between this PowerMac G4 and my iMac, I've NEVER 
>had any variant of Linux-PPC boot with visible text unless I used 
>the novideo option. Could anyone offer me an explanation as to why 
>that is? On the iMac I had the option of using novideo, having text 
>at startup (thus a viable runlevel 3) OR I could not have novideo 
>running and run an accellerated XFree86 (non-framebuffer) Xwindows 
>but at the cost of having no text mode.
>
>I don't even know what the novideo option does, but I was under the 
>impression it forced everything to use the kernel-level frame 
>buffer. Am I wrong about that?
>
>Murray
>
>On Wednesday, May 22, 2002, at 01:21  PM, Nick (Spunky Cadaver) wrote:
>
>>on boot instead of novideo, boot with the radeon:dfp option 
>>instead? I was able to get it running that way but not into X 
>>free...then again my installation had some problems and I need to 
>>eigther order CDs or download a new images...
>>
>>>I'm happy to report that FINALLY I can run X-windows on my G4 
>>>dual-500 with ATI Radeon (ADC) card and Apple Cinema Display. It's 
>>>been a looooonnnngggg battle, but I'm finally there!
>>>
>>>The only caveat... I can only use 8 bit (palatted) color. Sigh. By 
>>>the way, if anyone is in the same boat and hasn't gotten this 
>>>working yet, e-mail me at willimur@bellatlantic.net and I'd be 
>>>happy to e-mail you my XFree86 configuration file.
>>>
>>>I'm trying now to figure out if there's any way to get my coveted 
>>>TrueColor on this system, but there's precious little in terms of 
>>>documentation about how the framebuffer works. Some of the things 
>>>I've had to do...
>>>
>>>First, I can only get the system running by booting into 
>>>linux-novideo mode from yaboot. From there I can do a manual 
>>>"startx". All I really had to do was add the screen timings to my 
>>>XF86Config-4 file. But when I try to ask for anything but BitDepth 
>>>8 it says it can't find/initialize the proper fb mode. I've added 
>>>entries for both 57 hz and 60 hz (60 is what I've seen in all 
>>>notes on my Internet searches, but 57hz is what's mentioned if I 
>>>do a "fbset -s" command to see what the current frame buffer is 
>>>set at.
>>>
>>>Next I tried adding some entries in the /etc/fb.modes file for 57 
>>>and 60 hz at 8, 15, 16, and 24 bit depths. I can do an fbset 
>>>command with the 8bit 57hz and 8bit 60hz modes, but I get an ioctl 
>>>error when I try to do the higher bit depths. Additionally, if I 
>>>try to specify the higher bit depths on the fbset command line 
>>>like 'fbset -depth 8 "1600x1024-57"' I'm okay, but if I replace 8 
>>>with 16 it dies again.
>>>
>>>***strange behavior: if I say "fbset -depth f ..." or even "fbset 
>>>-depth q ..." the command seems to execute, whereas having a 
>>>double-digit entry gives the same error. At first I thought that 
>>>having "f" work meant it was taking the values in hex, but I put 
>>>the letter q in there (obviously illegal) and I got no errors. I'm 
>>>also noticing that the screen isn't flickering or showing any 
>>>other visible signs of switching modes, so I'm doubting that this 
>>>is working whatsoever.***
>>>
>>>Finally, I tried configuring XFree86 for the Radeon (non-fb) 
>>>driver and running it both under my linux-novideo boot and regular 
>>>linux boot (this gives me a blank screen so I had to telnet in 
>>>from another computer) and both locked up the computer.
>>>
>>>Does anyone know enough about the Frame Buffer to give me a hint 
>>>as to how I can proceed? I've even dug through the linux source 
>>>code for the Radeon frame buffer just to make sure that TrueColor 
>>>was supported (it is). At this point I'm at a complete loss as to 
>>>how to set the appropriate frame buffer mode.
>>>
>>>Thanks
>>>
>>>Murray Todd Willams
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>yellowdog-general mailing list
>>>yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>>>http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general
>>
>>
>>-- 01001110011010010110001101101011
>>
>>"Windows XP not found: (C)heer, (P)arty, (D)ance?"
>>
>>"Macintosh -- we might not get everything right, but
>>atleast we knew the century was going to end."
>>
>>Spunky Cadaver
>>Nick Shaff
>>http://shade.cit.cornell.edu
>>ICQ - 5473298
>>AIM - Spunky Cadaver
>>_______________________________________________
>>yellowdog-general mailing list
>>yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>>http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general
>>
>
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-- 
01001110011010010110001101101011

"Windows XP not found: (C)heer, (P)arty, (D)ance?"

"Macintosh -- we might not get everything right, but
atleast we knew the century was going to end."

Spunky Cadaver
Nick Shaff
http://shade.cit.cornell.edu
ICQ - 5473298
AIM - Spunky Cadaver