Subject: Re: XFree86 4.0.* palette unfriendliness
To: Ken Hornstein <kenh@cmf.nrl.navy.mil>
From: David Brownlee <abs@netbsd.org>
List: current-users
Date: 02/09/2001 10:16:35
On Fri, 9 Feb 2001, Ken Hornstein wrote:

> I discovered that the problem I was having with my laptop and XFree86 4.0.2
> (Neomagic chipset) was that the XFree86 code wasn't restoring the VGA
> palette when switching back to text mode.  And even when I fixed _that_
> problem, there was a bug in the palette saving code that resulted in the
> VGA palette being shifted by one color after every X server run.
>
> I fixed both of those problems and submitted patches, but in a
> discussion with the developer he said that Linux saves and restores
> the VGA palette itself, that's why he never noticed the problem.
> Now, I'm wondering ...  was there an XFree86 API change that now
> means it's _NetBSD's_ responsibility to do this, or are we victims
> here of sloppy coding?  If it was just the Neomagic chipset, I'd say
> sloppy coding ... but two other people told me the same thing happens
> to them with two different chipsets (I fixed the problem in the glint
> driver - thanks Nathan for testing it!), so I'm starting to wonder here
> if this was a concious decision by XFree86 team.
>
> If we're the victims here, then do we have an official channel where we
> can tell the XFree86 team, "Hey, guys, can you please make sure all of
> your card drivers save and restore the VGA palette correctly?".

	On a related note - it would be nice if we could have some non
	Xserver method of resetting VGA, would help people with DDB a lot
	:)

		David/absolute		-- www.netbsd.org: No hype required --