compaq video?

bjh · 07-26-2018, 10:35 PM

Hi,

I am trying to make some use of an old PIII Compaq Deskpro EN that I have sitting around.

I find Puppy Linux makes it quite useable again and I could stop there but I am curious about some of the other distros I have not found too successful. In hind shight, I conclude that the issue with most of them is a video driver issue. The old Deskpro has its onboard video that the manual describes as:

Quote:

Matrox Millennium G400-SG AGP Graphics Controller with 16-MB SGRAM standard, not upgradable, providing
maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 x 16.7M colors at 65 Hz

Typically the install runs to completion but part way through, I loose video. Rendering the process useless (pun intended).

Is it possible to get such a linux driver and apply it to an otherwise blind (via console perhaps) linux install?

Advice welcome.

Thanks,

Brian H.

jlinkels · 07-27-2018, 05:10 PM

The logical thing to do would be to install without a GUI so that at least you have a running system in which you can SSH into, etc.

Then install a GUI and solve the driver issue while you have a fully functional machine.

jlinkels

mrmazda · 07-28-2018, 03:16 AM

What you're up against is satisfactory drivers for Xorg have been a problem for Matrox since the kernel incorporated KMS. There is no longer market demand for Matrox, so no incentive to do the work that needs doing to keep the old devices useful in current distros. There was a patch made specially for a server model motherboard Matrox gfxchip, but it doesn't help with other chips like the formerly very popular G400 line. So what you probably need as an option for Puppy is some older distro made for antiques and has a non-KMS kernel, or stick in an add-on ATI or NVidia/GeForce gfxcard, AGP if it has such a slot (e.g. Radeon 7000 cheap and plentiful), or PCI if not.

Depending on what you expect of this old Deskpro, it might get you over a hump to make a BIOS AGP change from 1 to 8 if there is such an option that isn't already set to 8. Also read https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1004453 for details that have faded from my memory. It likely describes why you're getting installation failures.

ArazelEternal · 07-31-2018, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmazda

What you're up against is satisfactory drivers for Xorg have been a problem for Matrox since the kernel incorporated KMS. There is no longer market demand for Matrox, so no incentive to do the work that needs doing to keep the old devices useful in current distros. There was a patch made specially for a server model motherboard Matrox gfxchip, but it doesn't help with other chips like the formerly very popular G400 line. So what you probably need as an option for Puppy is some older distro made for antiques and has a non-KMS kernel, or stick in an add-on ATI or NVidia/GeForce gfxcard, AGP if it has such a slot (e.g. Radeon 7000 cheap and plentiful), or PCI if not.

Depending on what you expect of this old Deskpro, it might get you over a hump to make a BIOS AGP change from 1 to 8 if there is such an option that isn't already set to 8. Also read https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1004453 for details that have faded from my memory. It likely describes why you're getting installation failures.

Adding in a cheap card is where I would likely go with this. There are a handful of Nvidia Quadro NVS 280 cards on eBay for $20-$30 that would likely do what you want very well.