Slackware 14.1 and s3virge

Woodsman · 08-02-2014, 04:46 PM

Slowly I have been updating all of my systems from 14.0 to 14.1. My last box to update was the trusty Pentium I with a Diamond Stealth 3D video card. The system won't start X with the latest X release in 14.1 with the s3virge driver. I can use vesa but then I am stuck at 1024x768 rather than use the Samsung 712N native 1280x1024.

From what I have found, the removal of XAA left a lot of old legacy drivers broken. For example, here. I also read that using ShadowFB should work around the problem, but I have had no success with that. Anything I try with the s3virge driver results in a black screen of death requiring a reboot.

So --- appreciate clues about still using s3virge or forcing vesa to use 1280x1024.

Yeah, I know, take the box out behind the barn and shoot the thing.

Thanks.

mostlyharmless · 08-02-2014, 05:00 PM

Hmm, what does xrandr show currently?
[EDIT:] I was thinking something like this http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...024-resolution would work

Didier Spaier · 08-03-2014, 10:42 AM

read-edid comes handy, as it can cook a full Monitor section for you, that you can just copy & paste in xorg.conf where you will also set the driver to vesa, of course. Usage (as root):

Code:

get-edid|parse-edid

That works only in case your EDID can be successfully retrieved, obviously, but is worth trying.

Here is an example:

Code:

bash-4.2# get-edid|parse-edid
This is read-edid version 3.0.1. Prepare for some fun.
Attempting to use i2c interface
No EDID on bus 0
No EDID on bus 1
No EDID on bus 2
1 potential busses found: 3
128-byte EDID successfully retrieved from i2c bus 3
Looks like i2c was successful. Have a good day.
Checksum Correct

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier ""
        ModelName ""
        VendorName "IBM"
        # Monitor Manufactured week 0 of 2005
        # EDID version 1.3
        # Digital Display
        DisplaySize 330 210
        Gamma 2.20
        Option "DPMS" "false"
        Modeline        "Mode 0" 120.60 1680 1712 1760 1888 1050 1051 1054 1065 -hsync -vsync 
        Modeline        "Mode 1" 100.53 1680 1712 1760 1888 1050 1051 1054 1065 -hsync -vsync 
EndSection
bash-4.2#

ReaperX7 · 08-04-2014, 01:37 AM

Unfortunately s3virage isn't the only driver that suffers from bad maintenance. A lot of older drivers for legacy hardware are under maintained or unmaintained due to the fact fewer and fewer units are still in working order. VESA is pretty much the only viable solution for rendering on older hardware nowadays anyway. If you think the s3virage driver is bad, the tdfx driver still lacks SLI support for 3dfx hardware after 10+ years.

Most drivers that are being maintained still are getting ready for Wayland support anyway so fewer and fewer older drivers will be making the transition to Wayland anyway. Most that do will have to have proper OpenGL support for EGL. Most hardware is going to be Intel, AMD, or Nvidia anymore. Outside of that, the rest will be supported through VESA and the Gallium3D software rasterizer.

Woodsman · 08-05-2014, 05:46 PM

xrandr and read-edid did not help. The s3virge driver is broken in 14.1. Worked fine in 14.0 (no longer installed) and worked fine since 10.0. I have had the computer connected to the Samsung 712N for many years. The problem is not the monitor, video card, or the xorg.conf. Just a broken s3virge driver. Removing the XAA support should not have disabled basic functions of the driver.

The computer is connected to the monitor through a KVM, shared with a PII with a Voodoo Banshee video card using the tdfx driver. I can still use 1280x1024 and the tdfx driver with the PII system. The XAA support was removed from the tdfx driver too.

The vesa driver should support 1280x1024, which is the native resolution of the monitor, but I haven't found a way to force that. I only get 1024X768 or lower. Doable for the old clunker, but like most things, would be nice to know why I can't get the native resolution to work with vesa.

I see an empty backtrace section in the Xorg.0.log when I use the s3virge driver. That is far as the log goes, along with the black screen of death.

mostlyharmless · 08-05-2014, 06:45 PM

SO just curious, what did xrandr show when you were running the vesa driver?

Woodsman · 08-05-2014, 07:32 PM

Quote:

SO just curious, what did xrandr show when you were running the vesa driver?

I never get that far. The monitor refuses to display with vesa at 1280X1024.

With no xorg.conf, X never loads, just the black screen of death requiring a reboot.

irgunII · 08-05-2014, 08:14 PM

I've got a true kick-butt video card you should swap out from that S3Virge garbage. It's a XipView from Xionics, model XIP-XV1602CI. Still in its unopened, air-tight static bag with the instruction booklett too. The thing's *only* 10 inches long and five inches wide and your system *must* have at *least* 4MB of RAM.