From: brad@i88.isc.com (Bradley Bosch) Subject: AST Power Exec users unite! Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 14:21:16 GMT
Just a quick note to poll for AST power exec owners who use or would
like to use linux. Please excuse the wide audience of this posting,
but I don't know any other way to find the people I need to find. I
have also included some accurate info on the display for which I have
seen mis-information posted recently.
If you fall into the category above, I would like to hear from you so
that we can combine our influence to get AST to stop stalling and
solve one or two very solvable problems with the bios. I have been
having a tough time getting cooperation or even returned phone calls
from AST support.
Before I get into the problems I want to point out some of the strong
points of this machine. It really does run for at least 4 hours on a
full charge (I have the 486SL system). The power management is
*MOSTLY* transparent to the OS. Linux runs fine with the power cord
connected and also runs fine on batterys with a few minor mods. In
spite of what AST says, the vga chip in the system does support
1024x768x16 and windows drivers for this mode even come with the
system. The display is the best 64 gray passive display I have seen
though the keyboard could be better.
I have been working with my 1 week old AST power exec and have found
some small but annoying problems with the setup and battery hot keys.
Just for the record, all the other power management functions operate
as they should, though not all are completely transparent (extra
interrupts).
Now a short summary of the problems. The setup and battery keys when
activated under linux (or when the battery display activates due to low
power) do not display properly and under the 2.05 version of the bios
leave the linux screen in an unusable (black) condition. Under the
2.10 bios the battery display screen though unreadable is at least
restored to use by linux after the three second time out (the setup
screen would be too if you could remember how to exit it without
seeing it).
The operation of these hot keys are designed to be transparent to the
the OS. It seems they just didn't get some of the video setup right.
Even though it shouldn't matter what I am running when I use these
features, they have hesitated to work on the problem after they heard
I was running some free software called linux which they had never
heard of. If you have any commercial software or operating system which
displays the same problem, let me know.
I also have problems with the system hanging a second after I turn it
on (the second power cycle always works). If you have seen this I
would like to know also.
Thanks.
--Brad Bosch
brad@lachman.com