Very Computer

Actually, I'm about ready to give this up and go buy another card,
but I thought I'd ask once and see if anyone can offer advice.

First, I'm new to Linux, having been in the SCO world for 15 years.

I'd like to start learning about Linux, so I bought RedHat 5.1
and installed it on a clone I have in the corner.  So far, everything
is very nice, but I just can't get X working with the video card.

If I use Xconfigurator, it identifies the card as a
"Trio64V2/DX or /GX".  The monitor is a clone 17" with a hsync
range of 30-65 and vertical 52-90.

When I run startx, the screen goes "turned off" black and that's
the end:  I can't even alt- to another screen and have to power
off.  In hopes that it might be confused by something else
(I haven't configured the network card yet), I've left it there
for as long as half an hour, but no luck.

I tried xf86config, and found that choice 301 references the 86c775,
so I had real hopes for that working, and it did manage a nice
white flash in the center before it locked me up just as dead :-)

That was before I noticed that /etc/X11/X was still pointing
at the S3 server that Xconfigurator chose rather than the SVGA
that the "301" choice wanted to use.  So I rpm'd that in,
fixed the links, and now I have a lovely BLUE screen and a hung
machine.  well, blue is much prettier :-)

I sent the stderr of "startx" to a file and it looks like
it was a happy server.   I guess I can keep hacking at this,
but I'm wondering if anyone can point me in a better direction.

Buying a different card doesn't bother me a bit, and if anyone
has a recommendation I will certainly listen, but if this card
*should* work, then I have to start digging deeper..

--

SCO ACE
SCO articles, help, book reviews: http://www.aplawrence.com

Yes, but this made me start thinking, so I tried just running
X.  This gave me what it should have: a gray screen, a working
mouse cursor, and I could ALT-FKEY out of it.

So then I removed all .X* and .xinitrc and ran 'xinit', which
gave me a gray screen with an xterm in the left hand corner,
which initially was a source of happiness until I realized
that the mouse was frozen, theres no shell prompt in the xterm,
and I can't ALT-FKEY out.

Further, that xterm is much too large.  It takes up 2/3rds of
the screen.. So apparently the screen is not getting into
the resolution that X thinks it is.  I'm getting out of my depth
here, but perhaps someone else can tell me if that would be apt
to cause the symptoms I'm seeing.  If so, it looks like this
is the wrong server for this card.  I'm suspicious of that
anyway, because although xf86config had 86c775 as a choice,
the startup data written to stderr for the SVGA server does NOT
include any reference to that chip.

And dammit, it's not supposed to.  Sheesh, I don't know where
I got that from.  I just ran xf86config again, and it's the
S3 server that supposedly supports this.  However, when I use
that, even raw X locks up: no grey screen, no mouse, no
ALT-FKEY out.

Maybe I need to buy another card today..

--

SCO ACE
SCO articles, help, book reviews: http://www.aplawrence.com