Subject: Re: X for tga
To: schaecsn <schaecsn@gmx.de>
From: Nathan J. Williams <nathanw@MIT.EDU>
List: port-alpha
Date: 03/25/2001 13:01:54
schaecsn <schaecsn@gmx.de> writes:

> (1) Unfortunately, the X server doesn't work for me. The graphics card
> and monitor did a good job under linux. This should imply that they must
> also work under netbsd (same XFree source, I guess).
> 
> booting says:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> tga0 at pci0 dev 13 function 0: DC21030 step C, board type T8-02
> tga0: 1284 x 1024, 8bpp, Bt485 RAMDAC
> tga0: interrupting at isa irq 10
> wsdisplay0 at tga0: console (std, vt100 emulation)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> the monitor is a dec vrc 21 - HA
> 
> 
> When starting X under netbsd I can "recognize" the screen, but
> everything is very distorted. A timing problem, I guess. There are no
> (intel-pc like) Xconfig files, aren't there? 

It's not a timing problem; it's X and the kernel disagreeing about the
size of the screen (X thinks it's 1280 pixels wide; the kernel has
programmed the card to be 1284 pixels wide, which can improve
performance but makes our current X server unhappy).

What version are you running? The workaround for this problem should
be in 1.5. 

> (2) The text console doesn't occupy all the space on the monitor but
> just a small percentage. My 21" monitor looks now like a 14" monitor. Is
> there a way to enlarge the viewable area?

In src/sys/dev/pci/tga.c is a line, at about line 350, that reads:

        rasops_init(rip, 34, 80);

You could change the 34 and 80 to something larger. I chose those
values because text mode performance was poor (since the kernel
has to draw or blit every pixel of the text) and a faster standard-width
screen seemed like a more useful setup than a larger big screen.

> (3) oh, what about emacs on these machines. The binary from
> ftp.netbsd.org works, but compiling it by myself from scratch dies with

You should look at the emacs entry in pkgsrc, in the editors/emacs
directory. There are patches there that are necessary to make it build
properly on NetBSD/Alpha. 

> (4) To be honest, I am a little bit disappointed by the speed of this
> machine. First impression, it behaves like a pentium with 40MHz (judeing
> by meassuring compilation speed of the joe editor under alpha and
> intel-pc). In particular the harddrive behaves like a floppy drive. very
> very slow. is this probably because of a slow harddrive, or is it
> because of - god forbid - netbsd, or because of the alpha design? It's
> SCSI, I guess.

My as200 isn't a speed demon, but it's OK. Can you post your entire
boot message output (found with dmesg) so we can see what disk and
other hardware you are using?

        - Nathan