Old Laptop Display (90C24A) chip- xsvga?

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Old Laptop Display (90C24A) chip- xsvga?
started by: CDG

Posted by CDG on June 28 2006,05:49

Hello. First the good (since this is my first post): I've been using DSL as an emergency system for some time now, and I absolutely love it. Best damn running live CD ever, and fun for high end boxes too.

Now the problem:

I've been trying to get Damn Small Linux into this old Toshiba T4800CT laptop for a while now. Looks like a 486DX/4 75mhz with 24 megs of RAM and in this case running a 1 gig HDD. No CDROM, floppy is fully functional.

So what I did is I decided it would be easiest ot run loadlin through DOS. So DOS 6.22, I copied the apropriate files using an unsupported (in Linux) parallel port CDROM drive. After I was done copying the contents of the Knoppix and isolinux directories into their corresponding locations, I uninstalled and unplugged the parallel port CDROM.

I basically did everything according to the DSL loadlin wiki, making the appropriate "options.txt" file and everything.

So I from the DOS prompt, I do a "loadlin @options.txt".

It started loading everything OK. Then it came to the X config. At first I tried the framebuffer mode- didn't work, init error 104. Then I tried XVESA at various resolutions and color qualities (including 640x480 4 bit). XVESA just made the screen go blank, and froze the computer tight so as to require me to shut it off several times manually using the power button.

I've been doing some googling and found this laptop to use a Western Digital 90C24A graphics chip. Unfortunately this requires the XSVGA server that DSL doesn't have.

The question is simple: how/what is the best way to get the Xsvga server onto DSL?

More info:

I DO have a PCMCIA network card that DSL recognizes. I have verified that this computer can connect through the internet when it drops me out to the command line after failing to load the framebuffer by using the links browser.

I know that DSL should be able to make use of apt-get, however when I try apt-get update, or apt-get install, or even apt-get, I just get an output that says "command not found".

The reason I bring this up is because I've heard that DSL should work with debian packages- I'm sure I can get X up and working if given the ability to make apt-get work.

I know this is kind of a suggestion here, but I think it would be useful if this was added to the FAQ or clearly put into the DSL wiki page. A few other people have had the problem, but I have yet to see any resolution to it.

Your responses are appreciated. I will try to check back here as often as possible to answer any additional questions about what I"m doing you might have.

Also, one last thing, I am not very Linux fluent. This kind of thing is beyond my understanding really, so I'm relying on simplicity of response here.

Thanks!

Posted by cbagger01 on July 02 2006,14:50

A few months ago, someone was trying to build an Xsvga server from Xfree 3.3.6

Unfortunately, I never saw the finished product appear as an extension in the MyDSL repository.

But it is possible to get the binary file from somewhere and then use it with DSL.

I am assuming that the servers inside the XFree86.dsl extension do not work, but I could be wrong.

Download XFree86.dsl and give it a try.

Posted by DaveJ45 on July 03 2006,19:02

I managed to get the old svga drivers installed on two of my 'minimal' laptops, both using the same sort of video chipset you mentioned. I'll have to check my notes and see what I did, since it's been a couple of months since I worked it all out.

The biggest hurdle is to get the configuration correct, which in my case consisted of googling like mad and then some trial and error.

I can tell you that searching these forums for svga turned up the bulk of the information that led me to the solution.

DaveJ45

Posted by CDG on July 04 2006,03:12

OK, I haven't checked back here as often as I would have liked, but I might as well put in some updates:

First, I started using Debian (woody) on this laptop. It seems to run well enough at the moment. I did the download of the x-window-system on Debian, then I ran the xf86config-v3 located in /usr/X11R6/bin folder. I am using the xserver-svga for the video chipset- I found it is still supported...

Second, I can't seem to figure out how to get the loadlin options such that DSL will boot into the fully featured console- dsl 2 is the normal boot option for this.... Doesn't seem to work in the options.txt file....

Well, that's all I have for now. Doesn't DSL make use of .deb packages? If so, can't the packages just be retrieved from a debian mirror? If so then there should be no problem at all getting the xserver-svga package onto there. Otherwise I will try the xfree86.dsl when I can get the computer to boot into a fully command line.

Thanks for the responses so far!