🚀 go-pugleaf

In <adtDCszHB.4so@netcom.com> adt@netcom.com (Anthony D. Tribelli) writes:

>But on the VLB 486DX2-66 I upgraded from Tseng ET4000 to ATI Mach 64, X
>crashes sometimes during initialization and sometimes when anything is
>typed. I even reinstalled from scratch. I suspect this is a compatibility
>problem not a configuration problem. If I am wrong and it is a
>configuration problem then I will argue that the configuration tools
>offered are not as capable as those accompanying other operating systems.
>It looks like Win95, WinNT, and OS/2 (which all configure and run
>correctly) are my only options for this 486 system. Too bad, I would have
>liked to have had a linux option. Maybe I'll have better luck with a
>future release of linux (the failed release is July 95 of Slackware). 

Do you have an ISA Mach-64 card, by any chance?  These cards are supported
only on systems with 12 MB of RAM or less.  Of course, not a Linux problem,
but an XFree86 one: nobody who is able to write a driver for this card
(the ISA flavour) has one.  Like most other problems with free software,
this one will be fixed when somebody will contribute the needed piece of
software.  Nobody is being paid for writing it and the ISA bus being 
obsolete, people don't seem interested to give up more interesting
projects to write a proper driver for an ISA card, which suffers from the
limitations of the ISA bus.
>
>I don't think my situation is rare. The linux help newsgroup is filled
>with the same "My CD doesn't work", "My video doesn't work", etc...
>problems found in the other OS help newsgroups. 

Because there are plenty of people who aren't able to read the installation
instructions or the HOWTO's, when they have a more special setup.  Chances
are the same people couldn't install Windows on their machines, if
Windows weren't preloaded on them.

>I just think the other OSs
>are making faster progress in this area. 

Then check the hardware compatibility list of UnixWare or Solaris.
Ever wondered why every video card comes with drivers for Windows?

The other OS's don't have this privilege, many don't even have the
privilege of using the BIOS extensions which come on some cards, everything
has to be implemented in the OS or the X server.  It's amazing how BIG
the Linux hardware compatibility list, considering that everything is
contributed software (Linus Torvalds doesn't have a zillion of PC's at
home, each with different cards inside).  It's all software contributed
by people.  Other people whine.  Sheesh.
>
>We have a fundamental disagreement. My impression is that you think linux
>is fine the way it is. I think it needs some work. It is unlikely that we

I have good news for you.  Linux it's being worked on.  Continuously.
Since 1991.  But only in those directions which are interesting for those
doing the work.  Nobody gets paid to solve _your_ problems.  Fix them
yourself or pay a company which is doing Linux support.

>will convince eachother and this conversation is starting to get
>redundant. It should be ended (unless you have a suggestion on how to get
>X to work on the 486 in question :-)). Thank you for your input. 

If it's an ISA card and if the system has more than 12 MB of RAM, either
replace the card or reduce the memory size.  Otherwise, I don't have any
idea about your setup and what's wrong with it.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland