On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Clarence Verge wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 19:51:42 -0400 (EDT), Steve <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Clarence Verge wrote:
>
> >> Now Xconmfigurator says it can't find XF86_SVGA or some such.
> >> Of course it can't. It seems it has deleted it or renamed it to XF86_MACH.
>
> > So, make sure you have the real XF86_MACH.
> > (It'll need to be in /usr/X11R6/bin/)
> > You should also have a symbolic link from
> > /usr/X11R6/bin/X -> Xwrapper
> > (unless you have the XF86 that came with Red Hat 5.x,
> > in which case X will need to link directly to XF86_MACH)
Brain fart! I was looking at MAch and MAtrox,
thinking they went together. duh!
The SVGA server is the one that is akin to the
VESA driver. It handles everything except the
accelerated cards... and in some cases, it even
handles the accelerated features of accelerated cards.
If Xconfigurator and/or xf86config say that you should
use XF86_SVGA, then it's a good bet you should.
My S3 ViRGE, for instance, can function under
either the XF86_S3V or the XF86_SVGA server.
I've used both, but finally settled on the latter
when I found I couldn't install Star Office 5.1
under the former. Also, later versions improved
the SVGA server to the point that it now outperforms
the S3V server anyway.
IIRC, the XF86_SVGA driver will work with just about
any card with at least 512K mem.
It appears that Xconfigurator is using ncurses,
so shouldn't require any X server at all to run.
XF86Setup (available usually with Caldera, among
others) is the one that requires XF86_VGA16 to
run.
One of the last steps of the configuration process
is to ask you if you want a symlink created. You
can either answer yes, or you can do it manually,
but /usr/X11R6/bin/X must be a symlink for the actual
driver you're using. (except in RH 6.x, where it
became a symlink to Xwrapper for better security)
All your startx, and xinit scripts are going to
call "X" which must point to a valid driver.
> No, XF86_MACH won't let me run as long as I have the Matrox card instead
> of the ATI card installed. That was discovered as soon as I changed
> cards.
Right. ATI = MACH. Sorry for my hurried reading
before. It appears that you need SVGA for the Matrox.
> My hunches now run like this:
> It worked the first time because I had an ATI MACH64 card installed
> and XF86_MACH existed. Maybe XF86_SVGA _NEVER_ existed.
Could be. During your initial install, you might
have just put in the appropriate driver. No need to
have the X server for every accelerated card there is.
> When the configurator checks the card it decides for itself that the
> card needs the svga server and there seems to be no way to circumvent
> this. Therefore it fails.
With my S3V, it told me I needed SVGA. I circumvented
it to use the S3V server, but eventually I ended up going
with SVGA anyway. The config software usually guesses
better than we can. ;-)
> I was surprised to find the Matrox card on the long list, but I was
> still presented with the suggestion that I use the SVGA server.
> I tried it. Wishful thinking - my manual search had already indicated
> it didn't exist - but for all I know it might get created. :((
No, for that you'll need to install the rpm which
contains it. That'll be
<cdrom>/RedHat/RPMS/XFree86-SVGA-3.3.x-x.i386.rpm
Again, sorry for the hurried reading before, and
the incorrect info.
- Steve
