I'm trying to upgrade to kernel 2.4.
I have normally been using 2.2.20-pmac which came
with woody and which works well with my PowerMac 7500.
Thought I would check out and see what 2.4 has to
offer, downloaded the source and rsynced it from
benh's tree following the instructions at
penguingppc.org. The resulting kernel was
2.4.20-rc-ben0.
Nice to see some surprising improvements.
Turns out that I had to turn off the no video driver
option in BootX. (Never thought I would see that).
Also found that it recognized my 7500's hardware.
Cool to see as well that it finally recognizes all
my VRAM (wow!). And finally found that it
recognized my control video hardware and that it
used the controlfb as the driver. (Never thought I
would see that either). I was impressed.
I have, however, encountered a problem with X video.
Console video works great. No artifacts and it
appears in the same resolution that it had when I
was running 2.2.20-pmac. X video is another story.
I'm running XFree86 Version 4.1.0.1 which came with
woody. Using kernel 2.4.20-rc-ben0, I now
can't get the "1024x768" resolution I once had.
Instead, I get a message on VT8 that reports that
the "signal is out of range" -- can't really tell if
the monitor is printing out this message or the
Xserver. My monitor is a 19" Dell attach with a
VGA adapter set at 1024x768.
The relevant parts of my XF86Config-4 which
describes my monitor is the following:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "fbdev"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Dell"
ModelName "M990"
HorizSync 30-96
VertRefresh 50-160
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
The relevant parts of my XFree86.0.log are also the
following: (Notice that the XServer does not report
an error with mode 1024x768.
---excerpt from my /log/var/XFree86.0.log --
(II) FBDev: driver for framebuffer: fbdev, afb
(II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw"
(II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/linux/libfbdevhw.a
(II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.1.0.1, module version = 0.0.2
ABI class: XFree86 Video Driver, version 0.4
(II) FBDev(0): using default device
(II) Running in FRAMEBUFFER Mode
(**) FBDev(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
(==) FBDev(0): RGB weight 888
(==) FBDev(0): Default visual is TrueColor
(==) FBDev(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(II) FBDev(0): Hardware: control (vidmem: 4095k)
(II) FBDev(0): Checking Modes against framebuffer device...
(II) FBDev(0): mode "1024x768" ok
(II) FBDev(0): mode "800x600" ok
(II) FBDev(0): mode "640x480" ok
(II) FBDev(0): Checking Modes against monitor...
(--) FBDev(0): Virtual size is 1024x768 (pitch 1024)
(**) FBDev(0): Default mode "1024x768": 44.9 MHz (scaled from 0.0 MHz), 35.5
kHz, 87.0 Hz (I)
(II) FBDev(0): Modeline "1024x768" 44.90 1024 1032 1208 1264 768 768 776
817 interlace +hsync +vsync
(**) FBDev(0): Default mode "800x600": 36.0 MHz (scaled from 0.0 MHz), 35.2
kHz, 56.2 Hz
(II) FBDev(0): Modeline "800x600" 36.00 800 824 896 1024 600 601 603 625
+hsync +vsync
(**) FBDev(0): Default mode "640x480": 25.2 MHz (scaled from 0.0 MHz), 31.5
kHz, 60.0 Hz
(II) FBDev(0): Modeline "640x480" 25.20 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525
-hsync -vsync
(==) FBDev(0): DPI set to (75, 75)
(II) Loading sub module "fb"
(II) LoadModule: "fb"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libfb.a
(II) Module fb: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.1.0.1, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: XFree86 ANSI C Emulation, version 0.1
(**) FBDev(0): Using "Shadow Framebuffer"
(II) Loading sub module "shadow"
(II) LoadModule: "shadow"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libshadow.a
(II) Module shadow: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.1.0.1, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: XFree86 ANSI C Emulation, version 0.1
(--) Depth 24 pixmap format is 32 bpp
(==) FBDev(0): Backing store disabledi
--end excerpt
Additional information. I can get the 800x600 video
mode. But this mode is not really that great. The
image appears squished on the left and the right
sides.
Since kernel 2.4 has been around awhile, I figure
someone has already seen this problem. Is there a
solution?
Any advice would be greatly appreciate as always.
--
wcrowshaw
