Laptops :: IBM Thinkpad 560z/560x



If you want accellerated graphics on your thinkpad and you have the NeoMagic chipset (do 'Xvesa -listmodes' and look for 'MagicGraph') then the following instructions might work, they did for me...

1) You need an X-Server with accelerators for your chipset. Unfortunately there arent any opensource ones for NeoMagic, but RedHat did produce a binary only version that you can still find on the net. Google for...

XBF-neomagic-glibc-1.0.0-1.i386.tgz

I see newer versions such as XBF-neomagic-glibc-1.1.0-1.i386.tgz floating around but I havent tried them yet.

I also tried the XFCom X-Server that you can find by looking for XFCom-neomagic-glibc-2.0.0-1.i386.tgz and it did work, but seem to use more memory. I stuck with the XBF one.

2) untar and put the XBF_NeoMagic binary in /usr/bin/X11

You'll need to change the file permissions on the binary before you copy it...

sudo chown root XBF_NeoMagic
sudo chgrp root XBF_NeoMagic
sudo chmod +s XBF_NeoMagic
sudo cp XBF_NeoMagic /usr/bin/X11

The tar does have a directory structure that suggests that you should extract in in /. but I decided not to do that in case it overwrote something important.

3) Copy XF86Config.neomagic to /etc/XF86Config
sudo cp XF86Config.neomagic /etc/XF86Config

4) Edit your ~/.xserverrc

comment out everything thats there and add...

exec /usr/bin/X11/XBF_NeoMagic -bpp 16 -nolisten tcp &> /dev/null

5) Edit your ~/.xinitrc

add the following before starting fluxbox or your window manager...

xmodmap -e "keycode 22 = BackSpace"
xmodmap -e "keycode 107 = Delete"

6) Edit /usr/share/themes/Default/gtk/gtkrc

comment out any lines that say "font = ..." and add the following at the end...

style "neomagicstyle"
{
fontset="fixed"
}
class "GtkWidget" style "neomagicstyle"

7) exit and restart your X server using startx

8) start emelfm, goto configure, Interface Misc., and change the List Font to courier (copy the Output font).

9) exit emelfm

Everything should now be working nice and fast :-)

update 14dec04 -----------------------------------------

I am using XBF-neomagic-glibc-1.1.0-1.i386.tgz right now... seem to work good! Not only that, but I havent noticed any suspend/resume failures since switching from Xfbdev - perhaps this is an extra bonus of using this Xserver.

update 14dec04 -----------------------------------------

I am now using XFCom-neomagic-glibc-2.0.0-1.i386.tgz and it works great as well. Doesnt seem to use any more memory than the others - dont know what I was doing first time around :-) Looks like XFCom is a later version of the XBF server, so this one is probably the one to get. All the instructions above should still work, just use XFCom_NeoMagic in place of XBF_NeoMagic.

Here is an excerpt from the tar file...

Supported hardware

  * NeoMagic 2200 (MagicMedia256AV)
  * NeoMagic 2160 (MagicGraph128XD)
  * NeoMagic 2097 (MagicGraph128ZV+)
  * NeoMagic 2093 (MagicGraph128ZV)
  * NeoMagic 2090 (MagicGraph128V)
  * NeoMagic 2070 (MagicGraph128)

Reported Working Laptops

  * Acer Travelmate 7120T
  * Acer Extensa 367, 367D & 710TE
  * Actebis TN559Pro
  * Asus P6300
  * CTX EzBook 700 & 77X series
  * Compaq Presario 1080, 1210, 1215, 1220, 1610, 1611, 1620, 1621 & 1640
  * Dell Inspiron 3000 & 3200
  * Dell Latitude CP, CPi, LM & XPi
  * Digital VP HiNote 575, 703, 717 & 720
  * FIC DESIGNote 5550
  * Fujitsu LifeBook 420D & 656Tx
  * Gateway 2000 Solo 2300XL, 2500LS & 5150
  * Highscreen XD Advance II 21,1" TFT
  * Hi-Grade Notino AS6000 pII/266Mhz
  * Hitachi VisionBook Plus 5000
  * HP Omnibook 800, 3000, 3100, 4100 & Sojourn
  * IBM ThinkPad 380D, 380E, 380ED, 380XD, 385XD, 560X & 600
  * LEO DESIGNote 5550
  * Micron Transport XKE
  * NEC Ready 330T
  * NEC Versa 2780 MT, 5060X, 5080X, 6060 & 6230
  * NEC MB12C/UV (mobio NX)
  * OPTI Phoenix
  * Panasonic CF_S21, CF-25 MKIII & CF-35
  * Quantex H-1330
  * Sceptre 4500
  * SEH DESIGNote 5550
  * Siemens Nixdorf Scenic 510
  * Sony PCG-505, PCG-705, PCG-717, PCG-719 & PCG-731
  * TI Extensa 660 CDT
  * Toshiba Libretto 100CT
  * Toshiba Protege SS3000
  * UMAX 520T

Obviously it works on the IBM 560z as well :-)

update 14dec04 -------------------------------

after googling a bit more it appears that Neomagic support was added to the XFree86 XF86_SVGA server in version 3.3.6...

http://www.xfree86.org/4.2.0/Status21.html

So, Im guessing that if I snag the XF86_SVGA binary from Knoppix that might work in DSL on my thinkpad. I'll try it out if I have time. XFCom_NeoMagic seems to work pretty good for now anyway.

update 15dec04 -----------------------

The XF86_SVGA server works great. It is much better than the XBF or XFCom servers. See the other tread regarding how to install.
As a rough guess, what kind of increase in responsiveness did you experience??

I have a 560x and it is a little *sluggish*.  I just wrote it off to processor speed though...
Firefox/Dillo scroll smooth and fast just like my 3Ghz windows box and the games are noticeably faster. :-) If you just use xterms you probably wont notice much difference.

There are a couple of tiny font glitches in Gtk apps with the XBF server, probably due to missing X11 fonts that Xfbdev has built in (or maybe its just smarter) but the little Gtk config change I mentioned fixes 99% of the issues and I dont use many Gtk apps.

Its easy to switch back to Xfbdev if you want. Just comment out the XBF_Neomagic line in your .xserverrc and uncomment your old Xfbdev line.
I'll try your instructions this evening and post the results.
How much bigger is it compared to the smaller x server that comes with DSL stock?

Brian
AwPhuch
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