Re: ATI Mach64 & XFree


Subject: Re: ATI Mach64 & XFree
From: Bob Beaton (bob@keyengine.com)
Date: Sun Mar 24 2002 - 21:38:21 MST


FWIW, I've had similar problems on my 8500's running the Mach 64 card.
I've only been able to get the frame buffer device to work. It's
reasonable, all things considered, for normal office work.

For my 8500 setups, I've often found it necessary to ensure that the Mac
side is setup properly before booting into Linux. Use the MacOS Monitors
control panel to set your pixel addressability and color depth as
desired or available.

Then, during the Linux boot, watch the console output (or check the
message logs afterward) to ensure that the card gets setup correctly.
Near the middle of a dmesg printout, you should find something like:

MacOS display is /bandit/ATY,mach64
Using unsupported 1280x1024 ATY,mach64 at 81800200, depth=16, pitch=2560
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 160x64
fb0: Open Firmware frame buffer device on /bandit/ATY,mach64

You may need to use some kernel parameters if its not setup properly.
Doing a /proc/cmdline on my 8500 yields:

[root@grdzero /root]# cat /proc/cmdline
root=/dev/sdb8 video=atyfb:vmode=15,cmode:8 video=ofonly

Finally, I've often had to force a particular Linux video setting with
the 'fbset' command before running, such as fbset "1280x1024-71". The
available "valid modes" seem to depend on your Linux boot-up settings,
but I'm not real clear on this point. Anyway, doing a fbset on my 8500
yields:

 [root@grdzero /root]# fbset

 mode "1280x1024-71"
     # D: 100.000 MHz, H: 75.758 kHz, V: 71.201 Hz
     geometry 1280 1024 1280 1024 16
     timings 10000 16 16 16 16 8 8
     rgba 5/10,5/5,5/0,0/0
 endmode

Hope this helps.
Bob

P.S. Forgot to mention, I'm running XFree86-4.1.0-3d on YDL 2.4.10-12a

  

On Sun, 2002-03-24 at 22:49, Michael Hackett wrote:
> On 2002-03-24 09:10, Paul J. Lucas wrote:
>
> > Although it's for a PowerBook G3, they both use the Mach 64
> > chip, so try my config:
> > 
> > http://homepage.mac.com/pauljlucas/personal/powerbook/XF86Config-4.txt
>
> Thanks for the help, Paul, but even with your config file, it still
> tells me that the driver doesn't support 24 bit depth. Are you using
> the same version? (According to the log, mine is "ATI driver (version
> 6.3.6)", XFree v4.1.0.)
>
> -- Michael



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