From: dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (david.e.wexelblat) Subject: Re: X11r5 on Genoa 8500VL? Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 14:36:01 GMT
[Yes, I know, I'm following up my followup, but it's necessary :->]
In article <1993Feb20.184425.3228@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> I wrote:
> In article <C2pqCC.65n@jti.com> richb@jti.com (Richard Braun) writes:
> > Genoa just came out with a low-cost VESA local-bus graphics accelerator
> > card, the 8500VL, which I bought yesterday.
> >
> > Before I return this to exchange it for a lower-performance product which
> > is in the list supported by Xfree86, is there a VESA driver which I could
> > try using under Linux?
> >
> > thanks,
> > -rich
> > P.S. The manual states that the board uses a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426
> > Accelerator, and is VESA-compatible. My copy of Xfree 1.2 bombs out
> > saying it can't find a supported device.
>
> You're out of luck. VESA-compatible is completely irrelevent for Unix (of
> any sort). VESA-compatible is referring to the BIOS, and XFree86 (or
> any other Unix implementation) does not use the BIOS (in fact, cannot
> in any safe fashion). Sorry.
>
> The Cirrus accelerated chipset is one that we will look at in a later
> release of XFree86. But for now, you're out of luck.
Whoops. VESA has their fingers in too many pots :->
I did NOT intend to imply that VESA LocalBus is incompatible with Unix and
XFree86. VLB is fine (assuming you are using supported hardware).
I was referring to VESA BIOS compatibility. When one talks about an X
driver, one is usually talking about graphics functions, which is why I
made the mental leap to BIOS, and forgot that VLB was also being discussed.
My comments about BIO compatibility still stand.
Sorry about any confusion this might have caused.