Hi all,

I am new as can be to Linux! Set up redhat 9 on a laptop yesterday (wow, even succesfully, with dual XP boot). Got a problem though with the LCD screen: it's flickering (small horizontal lines) when I change the resolution from default 800x600 to 1024x768.

BUT: it doesn't do that when I log on as root?!

I've been reading all kind of pages with all sorts of tips, but before I try them out: how easy is it to destroy/harm a TFT LCD screen? Or: what should I definately NOT do?

Some specifications:
Max. LCD Res: 800x600 SVGA, 1024x768 XVGA
Colors with max. res.: 32 bit true color depends on video memory (which is 8 MB)
LCD size: 13.3" XGA TFT
Videocontroler: intergrated in SIS chipset (SiS630 GUI Accelerator+3D)

Laptop: Topline Amicus 3200S, Celeron 667MHz, 192 MB RAM, 10 GB HDD.

All suggestions more then welcome!

Kind regards, Leon.

hrm.. what should you definately not do...

Use redhat on a laptop! Lol...

Redhat flickers for me on my laptop, and on several different digital flat panels I've tried. I dont know why. I've gotten the flickering to stop by picking monitors other than what I actually have.

Suse and Mandrake don't flicker for me, so I use suse.

Can you post your /var/log/XFree86.0.log file?

I tried to post the log file, but I can't attach, and copy/paste doesn't work either...
So, how then?

Leon.

check your XF86Config file (in /etc/X11/). In the "Device" section what driver are you using? it should be set to "sis".

In the "screen" section, under the "display" subsection set "1024x768" to be your first res.

You may also want to play around with the sync under the "monitor" section.
for XGA
HorizSync should be 45-50
VertRefresh should be 55-65

I assume you only want to run at XGA. After doing the above check the log file and see what kind of interesting messages you get relating to the sis driver and sync/timings.

Thanks,

driver was ok (sis), sync changes didn't have any effect. But it's solved by setting colors to thousands instead of millions.

Other question: the 3D hardware acceleration can't be enabled (it's grey). But the hardware should be able to use support it (as before in Windows). Any idea how to enable it in linux?

Regards, Leon.

I do not understand, what is grey? If it's an RH9.0, i wouldn't know it.
however here is how you can gain some info about 3D accelaration.

glxinfo | grep dering (check if it's enabled)

Most likely it's not, which would mean a lot of work to enable it if the following don't yield good results.

modinfo agpgart
modinfo sis

if both of these return info, then it won't be much work.

grey; I mean it's visible as option but unable to click on it to activate...

Thanks for the suggestions, now at least I have some idea where to start and look for it!

i meant the object that is grey, what does that object theoretically supposed to do, and where is it located? is it in a control panel like window?

It's an option in the display configuration window, and reads 'Enable 3D hardware acceleration' (or something similar, I'm not near my laptop now...).

[leon@localhost leon]$ glxinfo | grep dering
direct rendering: No

[leon@localhost leon]$ modinfo sis
bash: modinfo: command not found
(am I doing something wrong here?)

Found the 'solution' in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/README.DRI
Seems like a lot of work.... ;-)

no you did nothing wrong. The solution is a lot of work. I wanted to see if it indeed it would be a lot of work. I'm sure if you read the README.dri you know that you need to recompile the kernel and enable the drm modules. This would create the sis modules that you didn't find. If you are up to it I can help.

Thanks!

Another possibility: I found XFree86 drivers for SIS, but I haven't managed to get that to work yet.

Where I got stuck was: what/where exactly is the kernel tree? Maybe you can 'translate' part of the instructions to a newbie....

Next are part of the instructions copied from http://www.winischhofer.net/

For kernel 2.4: Copy the Makefile, all .c and .h files EXCEPT "sisfb.h" over the existing ones in the kernel source tree (drivers/video/sis/)

I copied these to
/lib/modules/2.4.20-20.9/kernel/drivers/video/sis/

For kernel 2.4: Copy sisfb.h over the existing one in [kernel-tree]/include/linux.

Now I cpied them to
/usr/include/linux/

But then I got completely lost:

cd to the kernel tree directory.
Run "make clean". This is important, otherwise the kernel might ignore your startup parameters for sisfb.
Then reconfigure the kernel (using for instance "make menuconfig") and enable "Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers" in Code Maturity Level Options, "SiS Acceleration" (along with your type of chipset) in Console Drivers->Framebuffer support. If you happen to select Advanced Low Level Driver Options, you *must* select "8 bpp packed pixel support", "16 bpp packed pixel support" and "32 bpp packed pixel support" as well. For 2.6, the options and their names have slightly changed. I am sure you will find them.
Run "make dep", then recompile and reinstall the kernel and the modules.

For example: from which dir do I run make clean? whatever I tried, it everytime gave me something saying no rule set for clean (or something like that).

Anyway, I am now first going to install RH9 again on a new hard disk, then later I will continue with the above battle.

there's a note in the install instructions:
It has come to my attention that RedHat and perhaps some other distros have patched the kernel in a way that makes it impossible to compile my version of sisfb. Bad luck. Use a stock kernel instead. These work well, too.

the kernel tree should be /usr/src/linux
all the make instructions should be executed from that directory.

I have actually learned something from you. I was curious as to why SiS is not part of the DRI package (dri.sf.net) - even though i don't use it. Your link explains this quite well. I'm currently at work, give me some time to go through the documentation.