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Parhelia in linux

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  • Parhelia in linux

    For those of you who cannot wait to test your P in Linux, wait no more! Even though the big M has not yet released it's sanctioned drivers, the Parhelia is fully equipped to handle VESA 2.0. But don't let the name VESA put you off... I was expecting an extremely slow, and dull, X before I tried it out, but how wrong i Was. It actually feels somewhat accelerated. Moving around big opaque windows is usually a good way to tell if you're running accelerated or not. Not his time though, as the Parhelia redraws the window as fast as any other card would do with "real" drivers. The same goes for scrolling in, let's say Mozilla. No problems. It's very fast. No doubt a lot faster than running the VESA mode in Windows, which was painfully slow.

    I say again: I am right now using my Parhelia with XFree 4.1 in 1280x1024x32, and it is very hard to notice that it isn't an "accelerated" mode. Just turn on VESA framebuffer in your linux kernel and you're ready to go.

    Last edited by albatorsk; 28 July 2002, 09:05.

  • #2
    I totally agree. Had it semi-working the other day. Only real problem was that I couldnt' get it to work in anything higher than 1024x768x24, for some reason it crapped out at anything higher. Guess I was doing something wrong. It'd just give me a blank screen, then when I'd kill X (ctrl+alt+backspace) it'd screw up the text on the console.

    Leech
    Wah! Wah!

    In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

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    • #3
      Hmm.. That shouldn't happen. What kernel and XFree86 are you using?

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      • #4
        While framebuffer support is great, does anyone have any clue when XFree driver will be available? I want a phat P for my FreeBSD workstation (currently with G450), but I'm stuck sitting here waiting for drivers.....

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        • #5
          Originally posted by albatorsk
          Hmm.. That shouldn't happen. What kernel and XFree86 are you using?
          I'm running Debian Sid (unstable) with Kernel 2.4.18-686 and XFree86 4.2.0 (dont' remember which pre-release it was, they've probably released a new one by now.) These are the actual debian packages. I haven't tried the custom kernel I built yet. I was just playing around with this until Matrox released the Parhelia driver. Anyone tried to contact them about how they're going about releasing it? (Opensource, with closed source HAL driver like with the Gxxx cards? And maybe doing their own 3D driver? (Actually I think they are going to do their own 3D driver, since they're going through all the trouble of getting it certified :-) ))

          Leech
          Wah! Wah!

          In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

          Comment


          • #6
            Cool, got it up and running, though right now it's only 1280x1024@16bit. Oh well, I'll play around with that later.

            Leech
            Wah! Wah!

            In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by leech
              XFree86 4.2.0 (dont' remember which pre-release it was, they've probably released a new one by now.)
              I'd say it's about time you upgraded to 4.2.0 stable, since it was released in January.

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              • #8
                Yeah I know, it's just that it hasn't been Debianized, it's actually the stable release, but the guy who does the packaging has the debian packages at 4.2.0-0pre1v1 or something like that. It's the actual 4.2.0 stable release, but he does the organizations and such.

                Leech
                Wah! Wah!

                In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

                Comment


                • #9
                  FWIW, I've been using <a href="http://people.debian.org/~branden/">Branden's debian packages</a> of XFree86 4.2.0 for more then two months now, with no problems.
                  Tilable Desktop Backgrounds, perfect for DualHead: http://bg.rifetech.com/

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                  • #10
                    Actually that's the ones I was talking about. Last night I went into linux and for some unknown reason I couldn't get net access. I had an IP address through my DHCP server and everything. So I decided to go ahead and try out woody.... Well, installed it today, then found out when I tried to upgrade to 4.2.0 that Branden's page is down. Unfortunately I can't get XFree86 working. I finally found a mirror for 4.2, but it still won't work. I think it's because before I didn't have the framebuffer in the linux kernel installed, but the new woody release installs that by default. Anyone know how to turn it off? (Aside from a kernel re-compile which I'm too lazy right now to do.) Actually I'll probably just end up waiting 'til Matrox releases the Parhelia driver before I go back into linux. Though I miss it so. Windows XP is nothing but a joke, and it's becoming more and more unstable.

                    Leech
                    Wah! Wah!

                    In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      You need the kernel framebuffer to use Parhelia in XFree86 for the moment.

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                      • #12
                        I didn't have the framebuffer set up before and it worked, but with the framebuffer enabled it's not working at all. Anyone else have Debian 3.0 installed can comment on this?

                        Leech
                        Wah! Wah!

                        In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          So Albatorsk...

                          Are you pleased with P in Linux?

                          Where are your lovely avatar?

                          I am thinking of buying a P soon(tm) and Linux is a good alternative. Is it ok?

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            This forum won't accept my avatar

                            Still waiting for the real Xfree-drivers from Matrox, but the VESA-driver works adequately for now.

                            No DGA, though. And ofcourse no HW OpenGL

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