I have a friend in the math department who has an old DEC Starion
(Pentium-based) system.  He's trying to run GNU/LINUX on it.  Most things
work on it, but he's having trouble getting X to work properly.  (It has
some odd display problems.)

I've suggested that he revert to XFree86 3.3.x and see if that provided
better support.  (I know there's a substantial list of older graphics
hardware that 4.x doesn't support but which 3.3.6 supports---and I get the
feeling that supporting all of those old displays isn't a priority with
the XFree86 people (understandably).)

This relates to NetBSD because:

 a) If I can just bring in a 1.5.2 NetBSD boot CD, that may be easier
    to install than reverting his GNU/LINUX to an older XFree86.

 b) I know that NetBSD maintains its own branch of XFree86, so there may
    be NetBSD-local changes to XFree86 to support the DEC Starion's
    graphics.

(The Starion's graphics is S3 based; I remember that much.  The XFree86
4.x information my friend found was marking this particular S3
model/version/whatever as "unsupported".  However, the graphics mostly
works.  It suffers, on the top 1/8th (maybe) of the screen substantial
interferance (for lack of a better term) with the next segment (say the
second 1/8th of the screen down).  It surprisingly doesn't crash, but is
irritating to work with.)

Anyway, I'm asking on the off-chance that someone knows and I can
insinuate NetBSD onto his computer.  (^&  He might be game for it anyway,
since he doesn't have much of value on the machine at this time.


Thanks in advance for any information.


  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu