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Re: FrameBuffers



JOHNSTONE,IAIN (A-Scotland,ex1) (iain_johnstone@agilent.com) wrote:

> When booting the AlphaServer 1000A from SRM with a CD the GUI install the
> screen goes blank as it the VGA card is not supported. After replacing the
> VGA card with a more generic Cirrus card all went well ... almost (a story
> for another day). The screen went blank also when booting with the Voodoo3.
> 
> I have heard it rumoured that Alphas have problems with fancy video cards
> .... is this true? Should I just go back to Potato for Sparc? Are Alpha's
> too much hassle?

Yes Alphas (actually it's the firmware) has problems with some video
cards that do "fancy" x86 BIOS calls. A work around to this would be to
install from the serial console. Linux should be fine with the card
(AFAIK) and if you get a newer X then what is in potato (maybe one from
woody?) then you should be all set. IIRC you don't need the firmware to
init the video as Linux does something on it's own... 

No Alphas are actually quite nice and unless I have been living under a
rock for a while (possible!) I think we are much further along with
Linux on Alpha then SPARC is. 


HTH,

Ron
-- 
Email: <mailto:rbf@farrer.net> 
Home:  <http://www.farrer.net/~rbf/>
ICQ: pulsar 26276320
Debian GNU/HURD on Alpha: <http://hurd-alpha.sourceforge.net/>

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