🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi
This post concerns a problem I'm having running the X server. First a little
history for context.

For some years now I've been running the Slackware distributions of Linux. I am
presently running Slackware V2.2 with kernel version V1.2.8. The machine I've
been using has been a no name 386SX. Recently, after getting sick of telling
myself to get a "real machine", I purchased a no name 486 mother board and 
IBM 586 CPU running at 100MHz. That's when my problem started.

In the old system I was using a SVGA card with the Trident tvga8900d chipset.
I transfered this to the new machine. Everything works fine except that I
cannot run up the X server. I'm using the same XFConfig on both machines.

The symptoms are (after typing startx 2>&1 | less):

	o The monitor switches to hi res mode (I'm using 1024x768 resolution
	  in both the old and new machines). The screen remains blank
	  indefinitely.
	
	o If I hit any of the <ALT><F1> through <ALT><F6> keys the screen
	  un blanks, for about a second, displaying the default grey stipple
	  background and the "x" cursor. It then blanks again and the monitor
	  switches into lo res mode (640x480).

	o After getting tty6 back I examine the stderr output. There is nothing
	  unusual there. In fact its an exact replica of the output I get when
	  running the same procedure on the old 386SX.

I've now tried three VGA cards. All give the same symptoms. Two of them are ISA
cards and on is a Diamond Stealth Trio64. Using the ISA cards I have no
problems with the old board. Additionally, I've run up OS/2 using the new 
board and the Trident SVGA card (haven't tried the others because I don't
think its worth while playing with OS/2's drivers). This works just fine
(mouse, keyboard, display).

I've tried every BIOS setup I can think of, including turning off all the
shadow ram. I've also removed, or disabled, all the IO I could, leaving only
the IDE disk drives, the keyboard and the VGA card.

Since the two ISA boards work fine using the old mother board, and since I
can use one of the SVGA cards and the new mother board to run OS/2, I suspect
that there is some thing about the new board that XFree does not like. I've 
not included a copy of my XFConfig for this reason and because it will make 
an already long message longer. If anybody thinks the problem in in there
I can send it on.

I'm hoping that some one has seen this problem before and can advise.

If you have any suggestions please post them here or mail
peter.bradshaw@nautronix.com.au

Thanks

Peter