[ale] Poor Resolution Troubleshooting...

[John M. Mills]

On Mon, 20 Oct 1997 myo at lamers.net wrote:
> i think i know the problem here... you say you're using the SVGA server
> (being XF86_SVGA)... the correct server for the Powergraph 64 is the S3
> server, XF86_S3.  I wasn't sure how much that would matter, but i just
> tried linking X to XF86_SVGA instead of XF86_S3 and got a 320x200 sized
> screen when i booted X-windows, without any support for CA+ or CA-.

I just installed a Trio64+ and set up XFree -- two reactions: (1) my card
is an S3, but I also needed the newest XFree (3.3.1?) to support my card.
(2) the 320x200 sounds like a problem in mode definitions within
XF86Config, not the card.

I start X-Windows with: 
  % xwin
  % exit

where 'xwin' is defined in my .bashrc as:
alias xwin='sleep 3; startx > ~/xwin.messages 2>&1 &'

You can then look at xwin.messages and see why XFree86 disallowed your
other video modes.  (You can always redirect the XFree86 message streams
and look at them, even if you are uncomfortable with my 'background and
exit' approach.)

[I know this approach causes some folks anxiety, but it works fine on my
boxen with Motif, fvwm, or fvwm95, and bash.  No zombies; no hanging,
open vt.]

>  Try
> setting a symbolic link to the S3 server and see if it works.  No
> guarantees ;)

This has always worked fine for me, as has the same approach with
XF86Config while I'm tweaking.

 John M. Mills, Senior Research Engineer   --   john.m.mills at gtri.gatech.edu
    Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0834
          Phone contacts: 404.894.0151 (voice), 404.894.6285 (FAX)
      "Planned Parenthood" may be the most hilarious phrase in English.