Compaq AVGA support

Tim Lindner · External Since: Jul 20, 2007 Posts: 4

I have a old Compaq 486 DX4-100 Notebook, on which I installed Slackware
11 recently. Only Xorg makes problems.

1. AVGA Chipset support is abandoned since Xfree 3.3.6
2. VESA Modes cannot be initialized, it gives me errors,
seems to me that the notebook doesn't have VESA support.
Don't know how to detect it.
3.VGA driver for Xorg is very strange here:
I try to use 640x480x4Bit (16 Colours), but it always switches
to a resolution of 320x200!

Same on Delilinux. Seems to be a general problem.
Don't know what to do here... If I could write a Xorg driver,
I would take a look into the old Xfree 3.3.6 driver.

Any ideas are desired

Rodney · External Since: Dec 14, 2004 Posts: 80

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:18:23 +0200, Tim Lindner wrote:

> I have a old Compaq 486 DX4-100 Notebook, on which I installed Slackware
> 11 recently. Only Xorg makes problems.
>
> 1. AVGA Chipset support is abandoned since Xfree 3.3.6 2. VESA Modes
> cannot be initialized, it gives me errors, seems to me that the notebook
> doesn't have VESA support. Don't know how to detect it. 3.VGA driver for
> Xorg is very strange here: I try to use 640x480x4Bit (16 Colours), but
> it always switches to a resolution of 320x200!
>
> Same on Delilinux. Seems to be a general problem. Don't know what to do
> here... If I could write a Xorg driver, I would take a look into the old
> Xfree 3.3.6 driver.
>
> Any ideas are desired

I can't say specifically for that laptop, however, the DSL distro is made
to run on old equipment like that. Live CD is slightly less than 50MB
download and that would let you test it out to see it it would work for
your needs. Older kernel and binaries but very usable and even relatively
fast if you have 128MB and use the "toram" boot option. I haven't tried it
on less than P166. If you normally run slack, you'll be able to figure out
a few of the "quirks" that trip up newbies.

Rodney

Tim Lindner · External Since: Jul 20, 2007 Posts: 4

Rodney schrieb:
> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:18:23 +0200, Tim Lindner wrote:
>
>> I have a old Compaq 486 DX4-100 Notebook, on which I installed Slackware
>> 11 recently. Only Xorg makes problems.
>>
>> 1. AVGA Chipset support is abandoned since Xfree 3.3.6 2. VESA Modes
>> cannot be initialized, it gives me errors, seems to me that the notebook
>> doesn't have VESA support. Don't know how to detect it. 3.VGA driver for
>> Xorg is very strange here: I try to use 640x480x4Bit (16 Colours), but
>> it always switches to a resolution of 320x200!
>>
>> Same on Delilinux. Seems to be a general problem. Don't know what to do
>> here... If I could write a Xorg driver, I would take a look into the old
>> Xfree 3.3.6 driver.
>>
>> Any ideas are desired
>
> I can't say specifically for that laptop, however, the DSL distro is made
> to run on old equipment like that. Live CD is slightly less than 50MB
> download and that would let you test it out to see it it would work for
> your needs. Older kernel and binaries but very usable and even relatively
> fast if you have 128MB and use the "toram" boot option. I haven't tried it
> on less than P166. If you normally run slack, you'll be able to figure out
> a few of the "quirks" that trip up newbies.
>
> Rodney

DSL will be my next step to choose, first I'll try to install an old
Xfree 3.3.6 Server... But thank you so far

Rodney · External Since: Dec 14, 2004 Posts: 80

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 11:33:20 +0200, Tim Lindner wrote:

> Rodney schrieb:
>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:18:23 +0200, Tim Lindner wrote:
>>
>>> I have a old Compaq 486 DX4-100 Notebook, on which I installed
>>> Slackware 11 recently. Only Xorg makes problems.
>>>
>>> 1. AVGA Chipset support is abandoned since Xfree 3.3.6 2. VESA Modes
>>> cannot be initialized, it gives me errors, seems to me that the
>>> notebook doesn't have VESA support. Don't know how to detect it. 3.VGA
>>> driver for Xorg is very strange here: I try to use 640x480x4Bit (16
>>> Colours), but it always switches to a resolution of 320x200!
>>>
>>> Same on Delilinux. Seems to be a general problem. Don't know what to do
>>> here... If I could write a Xorg driver, I would take a look into the
>>> old Xfree 3.3.6 driver.
>>>
>>> Any ideas are desired
>>
>> I can't say specifically for that laptop, however, the DSL distro is
>> made to run on old equipment like that. Live CD is slightly less than
>> 50MB download and that would let you test it out to see it it would work
>> for your needs. Older kernel and binaries but very usable and even
>> relatively fast if you have 128MB and use the "toram" boot option. I
>> haven't tried it on less than P166. If you normally run slack, you'll be
>> able to figure out a few of the "quirks" that trip up newbies.
>>
>> Rodney
>
> DSL will be my next step to choose, first I'll try to install an old Xfree
> 3.3.6 Server... But thank you so far

Good luck. Now I can say that DSL will also run on an old classic(non-MMX)
P133 with no L2 cache(empty COAST slot) but that's still not down to DX100
level. It might run better with framebuffer on your display rather than
VESA.

Joe Pfeiffer · External Since: Dec 21, 2004 Posts: 85

Rodney <me.DeleteThis@127.0.0.1> writes:

> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:18:23 +0200, Tim Lindner wrote:
>
> > I have a old Compaq 486 DX4-100 Notebook, on which I installed Slackware
> > 11 recently. Only Xorg makes problems.
>
> I can't say specifically for that laptop, however, the DSL distro is made
> to run on old equipment like that. Live CD is slightly less than 50MB
> download and that would let you test it out to see it it would work for
> your needs. Older kernel and binaries but very usable and even relatively
> fast if you have 128MB and use the "toram" boot option. I haven't tried it
> on less than P166. If you normally run slack, you'll be able to figure out
> a few of the "quirks" that trip up newbies.

AVGA was unusual enough that there was nobody who really cared about
keeping it working with X. I had a Compaq Concerto (and wrote a pen
driver for it at one time) and spent some time trying to figure out
what had changed in XFree86 after the last version for which it
worked, and was never able to pinpoint the crucial change. AFAIK,
nobody else has ever even tried.