Re: kernel sound

[Damion Yates <nospam [at] rd.bbc.co.uk>]

On Sun, 5 Dec 1999, Sam Simpson wrote:

> The vicious XF86Configurator still refuses to let me have more than 8 bits
> colour depth. Following the advice I got here I've made various
> adjustments to /etc/X11/XF86Config, most resulting in fatal X server errors
> - 'no default 8 mode' etc. I have a listed monitor, so the refresh rates
> are ok, (I've checked them), the 4mb of vid memory is recognised. And
> after all my S3 Virge is probably the world's most common video card. All
> worked fine with rh5.2.

It sounds like you do not have DefaultColorDepth in your XF86Config file.
When you run the server, normally a file called X* linked to the
correct binary for your graphics card (XF86_SVGA for S3 these days, used to
be XF86_S3?) it defaults to 8 bit per pixel, this is changed by running with
X -bpp 24 or any other number. If you are using startx/xinit to bring up the
X Window System, then you probably need to type startx -- -bpp 32 or
startx -- -bpp 16. (Using different choices for the colour depth just for
the sake of example).
If you have DefaultColorDepth 15 somewhere in your XF86Config then it'll be
the same as typing X -bpp 15 manually from the command line when you've only
typed X. The hard part of config is the monitor timings to allow high
resolutions, the rest should not really be a problem you'll end up after
configuring X with a config for various colour depths in a Display Subsection
of the main Screen part these might look similar:

Section Screen
Driver Accel
Device Primary Card
Monitor Primary Monitor
DefaultColorDepth 16
SubSection Display
Depth 8
Modes 1024x768 800x600 640x480
EndSubSection
SubSection Display
Depth 15
Modes 800x600 640x480
EndSubSection
SubSection Display
Depth 16
Modes 800x600 640x480
EndSubSection
SubSection Display
Depth 24
Modes 640x480
EndSubSection

This is an example. If you don't have monitor timings setup for 1024x768
(Could be that the monitor really can't do this, or that you've configed it
wrong), and you type X --bpp 8 you'll get an error appear and it'll start in
the lower res. It's possible if you don't have any setup for 640x480 and you
run as X -- bpp 24, that the X server will simply not start. The example is
for a card that has only 1 meg of mem hense the lame abilities. Your error
of 'no default 8 mode' sounds like you removed your Depth 8 SubSection and
replaced it with a different number to test a different depth. This would
work if you called X with a parameter to start it in more than depth 8.

*Recently this was called from Xwrapper which dealt more securly with running
setuid root.

> Am I right in believing that XF86Setup was developed by the X Consortium
> itself? In which case why doesn't it appear in the rh6.1 distro?

I don't understand why people don't like it. Slackware used to only come
with xf86config, a command line script that asked questions you didn't know
the answer to to generate the XF86Config, however it also came with an
example (potentially monitor destroying) config with settings you could use
anyway that were pretty sensible (could be tweaked with xvidtune) and so you
could always get X working with some playing. Other dists left blank configs
so that nobody could break their monitor which is a bit silly as only
extremely old monitors had any danger of exploding.

Once the X Consortium released XF86Setup I'm really surprised all the dists
didn't scrap their own scripts and switch to only this. I've never ever had
problems with it and find it very easy to use. It provides a very good setup
for X after getting to you click on all the modes and options you want. I
can't fault it. I don't tend to use X much, only for checking realmedia that
streams are working (part of my job) and sometimes netscape (when lynx, just
doesn't cut it). I spend most of my time at the console, so it's a surprise
that I love XF86Setup so much, I'd normally recommend techy command line
configurators.

--
Damion Yates - Damion.Yates [at] bbc.co.uk

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