[ydl-gen] XFree86 server botched.

[Olaf Olson]

Jeff,

Two key things.

1. When you measure in inches and enter the values, you MUST click the 
units button and set it to inches EVEN IF IT SAYS INCHES when you 
entered the number. As I recall, inches is the default, but it will 
still default to something else, regardless. If you don't do this, 
OpenOffice will open all documents such that you might get to see an 
entire word on your screen, instead of the entire document. In addition, 
all of the automatic viewing of file contents will fail, viewing 
postscript or PDF files from the file browser, for example.

2. To get back to the old settings. log in via a shell login, rather 
than a graphics login, and restore the automatic backup that YDL made 
when you changed the settings. This file is /etc/X11/XF86Config.backup. 
Restore it by renaming XF86Config and then renaming the backup file to 
XF86Config. This should get you back to something that works.

I have found that the preselect configurations (choose the monitor, 
video card, etc.) never gave me very good results. It worked better for 
me to choose what I knew the monitor and graphics could do. I have an 
8500, which is similar enough that it might work. I booted into OS9 and 
looked at the monitor settings there, to get the exact values that the 
Mac figured out would work. I then went back to YDL and set the values 
exactly, and adjusted the monitor size as explained above. You may 
actually have to edit the XF86Config file to add the display mode. Mine 
now looks something like this (ignore the ATI Rage 128 setting for the 
Device. My 8500 is offline until I can locate a new hard drive, as the 
original died after 10 years of near-continuous operation):

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "ATI Rage 128"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth     16
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth     16
                Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection


Best of luck! YDL brings life to old hardware.

Olaf


je killen wrote:

> I installed Yellow dog v3.0 on a Mac 7200/120 and it worked with 
> graphics card 'generic of compatible' and display as generic unknown. 
> I went to the system preferences app and found my monitor in the list 
> I.E. Apple 1710 and chose that. I have video RAM installed in the 
> computer but I don't have record of what size and the chips themselves 
> don't say explicitly. I
> also tried to configure the DPI (by follwoing the instructions and 
> measuring the monitor and entering the height and width in inches. I 
> know the monitor and system is capable of thousands of colors, so I 
> told it to do thousands of colors at 800x600.
> When I logged out of the session and logged back in the video was 
> missing a color and blotched with jagged, low resolution. I rebooted 
> and tried to uncheck the no video driver option in Bootx. With that 
> setting the server won't even run. Back to reboot and let it finish 
> booting into Mac OS before trying Linux again. This time the X server 
> only uses half the screen and is missing colors, grossly missing 
> colors. It is illegible enough not to be able to use it to change the 
> configuration. I switched to a console to use the system. FreeBSD has 
> a configuration script called xf86config that is run from the command 
> line to configure X. Is there a similar script on Yellow Dog? (none 
> was found by that name with find) Or do I have to re-install the 
> system? (as I already have had to for the same problems the first 
> time, last week end).
> Thanks
> Jeff K
> jekillen at prodigy.net
> Another item of interest:
> WHEN RUNNING YELLOW DOG V3.0 ON A POWERBOOK 3400C/180, DO NOT HIT THE 
> POWER KEY.
> THE DISPLAY GOES INTO STANDBY MODE AND WHEN I BROUGHT IT BACK UP IT 
> WAS WALL
> TO WALL FROZEN GARBAGE. THE POWER KEY IS RIGHT ABOVE THE DELETE KEY. I 
> FOUND
> OUT THIS TRAP WHEN I WAS IN A VI EDITING SESSION AND HIT THE POWER KEY 
> INSTEAD OF
> THE DELETE KEY.
> I hope this is or will be helpful to anyone about to embark on a 
> similar adventure with a 3400c.
> (perhaps this problem has been fixed, I don't know at this point).
>
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