Re: S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[Janne Johansson]

Den tors 16 apr. 2020 kl 18:24 skrev Paolo Aglialoro :

> Thanks Janne for the tech insight.
> So, but for routerboards/CLI boxen, considering that this recent move
> hinders GUI for most P3s, the really viable ones remain P3s/K7s with
> different graphics boards (mostly desktop/tower) and early P4s without
> em64t.


If there was a huge userbase with tons of GUI i386s needing life support,
then perhaps they
can form a group and do the heavy lifting, since many hands make work light.
If there is one box in a corner with S3 virge, then it can just stop
updating and have a
$25 box firewall it off the internet so you can get away with having it
unpatched where it runs with its GUI.

-- 
May the most significant bit of your life be positive.

Re: S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[Paolo Aglialoro]

Thanks Janne for the tech insight.

So, but for routerboards/CLI boxen, considering that this recent move
hinders GUI for most P3s, the really viable ones remain P3s/K7s with
different graphics boards (mostly desktop/tower) and early P4s without
em64t. For all the following stuff there's no reason not to run amd64.

Quite obsoleting and now few machines in order to support a full
architecture on the long run, like VAX has recently shown.

Pity, because best laptop keyboards still belong to this arch.



Il gio 16 apr 2020, 08:44 Janne Johansson  ha scritto:

> Den ons 15 apr. 2020 kl 23:29 skrev Paolo Aglialoro :
>
>> Is this a hint that soon i386 architecture will be deprecated?
>> Considering that supported hw (at least graphics) is going more and more
>> to
>> overlap with amd64, at the very end i386 would remain only for some
>> routerboards.
>>
>
> i386 has seen a fair share of deprecations, from the actual 386 CPUs and
> 486s without FPU, to machines with 8,16,32,64M ram for whom reordering libs
> and kernel isn't really doable with recent OpenBSD releases.
>
> --
> May the most significant bit of your life be positive.
>

Re: S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[Janne Johansson]

Den ons 15 apr. 2020 kl 23:29 skrev Paolo Aglialoro :

> Is this a hint that soon i386 architecture will be deprecated?
> Considering that supported hw (at least graphics) is going more and more to
> overlap with amd64, at the very end i386 would remain only for some
> routerboards.
>

i386 has seen a fair share of deprecations, from the actual 386 CPUs and
486s without FPU, to machines with 8,16,32,64M ram for whom reordering libs
and kernel isn't really doable with recent OpenBSD releases.

-- 
May the most significant bit of your life be positive.

Re: S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[lists]

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 23:26:44 +0200 Paolo Aglialoro 
> Thank you for the explanation, Otto.
> 
> Is this a hint that soon i386 architecture will be deprecated?

Hello Paolo,

Considering that it's worth reading the reply without misinterpreting anything,
it is here quoting this again:  "What other OS maintainers do is their choice".
Let's not invent reasons to claim if it does not work for you then nobody else.

Kind regards,
Anton Lazarov
MScEng EECSIT

> Considering that supported hw (at least graphics) is going more and more to
> overlap with amd64, at the very end i386 would remain only for some
> routerboards.
> 
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 8:14 PM Otto Moerbeek  wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 04:55:04PM +0200, Paolo Aglialoro wrote:
> >  
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I read from the 6.5 to 6.6 upgrade guide that the following files:
> > >
> > >
> > > */usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.la 
> > > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.so
> > > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.la 
> > > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.so/usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3.4
> > > /usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3virge.4*
> > >
> > > are being deleted as "retired". Does this mean that my IBM T23 will stop
> > > its X-life at 6.5 or is its S3 Virge video card supported in some other
> > > decent way (VESA or whatever)? I would be glad to know it *before* trying
> > > this upgrade.
> > >
> > > If the sad answer would be "no more support", could I ask why this,
> > > together with several i686 still working boxes, would be dropped while
> > > other OSs aren't doing so?
> > >
> > > Thanks  
> >
> >
> >
> > http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/xenocara/driver/Makefile?rev=1.74=text/x-cvsweb-markup
> >
> > explains it:
> >
> > "Unlink a number of old video drivers from the build.
> >
> > The corresponding hardware is out of date, barely useable
> > with modern systems and their code is not maintained.
> > ok sthen@"
> >
> > We have a very limited numnbers of volunteers. In general, code is a
> > liability, not an asset. What other OS maintainers do is their choice.
> >
> > -Otto
> >  

Re: S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[Riccardo Mottola]

Ciao Paolo,

Paolo Aglialoro wrote:
> */usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.la 
> /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.so
> /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.la 
> /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.so/usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3.4
> /usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3virge.4*
>
> are being deleted as "retired". Does this mean that my IBM T23 will stop
> its X-life at 6.5 or is its S3 Virge video card supported in some other
> decent way (VESA or whatever)? I would be glad to know it *before* trying
> this upgrade.
>
> If the sad answer would be "no more support", could I ask why this,
> together with several i686 still working boxes, would be dropped while
> other OSs aren't doing so?

I fear so. You might play with framebuffer.

the S3 Virge driver has always been problematic though, very little
maintained. I have it usable on Linux, but, you need to hack your Xorg
file and tweak some accelerations options and essentially restrict
yourself to 16bit (or 24bit without most accel, which is even worse).

Unfortunately other drivers which were perfectly working, like the
Neomagic, which were culled. Sure, even older than the S3 driver, but
perfectly working.

The issue is mostly "upstream" (well.. lack of thereof).

A pity indeed. Kills some old nice laptops around..


Riccardo

Re: S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[Paolo Aglialoro]

Thank you for the explanation, Otto.

Is this a hint that soon i386 architecture will be deprecated?
Considering that supported hw (at least graphics) is going more and more to
overlap with amd64, at the very end i386 would remain only for some
routerboards.

On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 8:14 PM Otto Moerbeek  wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 04:55:04PM +0200, Paolo Aglialoro wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I read from the 6.5 to 6.6 upgrade guide that the following files:
> >
> >
> > */usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.la 
> > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.so
> > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.la 
> > /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.so/usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3.4
> > /usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3virge.4*
> >
> > are being deleted as "retired". Does this mean that my IBM T23 will stop
> > its X-life at 6.5 or is its S3 Virge video card supported in some other
> > decent way (VESA or whatever)? I would be glad to know it *before* trying
> > this upgrade.
> >
> > If the sad answer would be "no more support", could I ask why this,
> > together with several i686 still working boxes, would be dropped while
> > other OSs aren't doing so?
> >
> > Thanks
>
>
>
> http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/xenocara/driver/Makefile?rev=1.74=text/x-cvsweb-markup
>
> explains it:
>
> "Unlink a number of old video drivers from the build.
>
> The corresponding hardware is out of date, barely useable
> with modern systems and their code is not maintained.
> ok sthen@"
>
> We have a very limited numnbers of volunteers. In general, code is a
> liability, not an asset. What other OS maintainers do is their choice.
>
> -Otto
>

Re: S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[Otto Moerbeek]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 04:55:04PM +0200, Paolo Aglialoro wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I read from the 6.5 to 6.6 upgrade guide that the following files:
> 
> 
> */usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.la 
> /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.so
> /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.la 
> /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.so/usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3.4
> /usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3virge.4*
> 
> are being deleted as "retired". Does this mean that my IBM T23 will stop
> its X-life at 6.5 or is its S3 Virge video card supported in some other
> decent way (VESA or whatever)? I would be glad to know it *before* trying
> this upgrade.
> 
> If the sad answer would be "no more support", could I ask why this,
> together with several i686 still working boxes, would be dropped while
> other OSs aren't doing so?
> 
> Thanks


http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/xenocara/driver/Makefile?rev=1.74=text/x-cvsweb-markup

explains it:

"Unlink a number of old video drivers from the build.

The corresponding hardware is out of date, barely useable
with modern systems and their code is not maintained.
ok sthen@"

We have a very limited numnbers of volunteers. In general, code is a
liability, not an asset. What other OS maintainers do is their choice.

-Otto

S3 Virge support on IBM T23 for 6.6

[Paolo Aglialoro]

Hello,

I read from the 6.5 to 6.6 upgrade guide that the following files:


*/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.la 
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3_drv.so
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.la 
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.so/usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3.4
/usr/X11R6/man/man4/s3virge.4*

are being deleted as "retired". Does this mean that my IBM T23 will stop
its X-life at 6.5 or is its S3 Virge video card supported in some other
decent way (VESA or whatever)? I would be glad to know it *before* trying
this upgrade.

If the sad answer would be "no more support", could I ask why this,
together with several i686 still working boxes, would be dropped while
other OSs aren't doing so?

Thanks