So New I have an Umbillical Cord

[Markus Deistler]

Hi,
On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 20.29 Nick wrote:

> Firstly, i ran that dexter.py thing again, and i decided to note what 
> it said. Apparently the setup detects a:
> 
> OFfb Mac OS display

That is the OpenFirmware "framebufferdevice-driver" for console-video
(not X!). I never was able to use OFfb without being left sitting in
front of a blank black screen :-((

> Is there any easy and definite way of running a diagnostic? I can't see 
> anything in system profiler on os 8.6.

Apple's system profiler should give you some details on your video
hardware... but Linux also does, just boot into Linux ... and
for a start run 
 
$ dmesg | grep fb

You'll see something similar to this:
-------------------------------------
  io_base_virt: fcbfb000, io_base_phys: f0000000, isa_mem_base: 00000000
Kernel command line: root=/dev/sdb6 video=atyfb:vmode:15,cmode:24
atyfb: mach64GX (ATI888GX00) [0x00d7 rev 0x03] 4M VRAM, 14.31818 MHz XTAL, 135 MHz PLL, 50 Mhz MCLK
fb0: ATY Mach64 frame buffer device on PCI
controlfb: VRAM Total = 2MB (2MB @ bank 1, 0MB @ bank 2)
controlfb: using video mode 6 and color mode 0.
fb1: control display adapter
-------------------------------------

The type of your "fb" (atyfb/aty128fb/imsttfb/controlfb) should match
your graphic-card. Further information here:
http://www.jonh.net/lppcfom-serve/cache/1043.html


Best Regards, Markus