*BSD News Article 14811


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!bogus.sura.net!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!netcomsv!88opensi!ferg
From: ferg@88open.org (John Ferguson)
Subject: Re: XFree startup error
Organization: 88open Consortium Ltd., San Jose
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 20:47:15 GMT
Message-ID: <1993Apr20.204715.7787@88open.org>
References: <1993Apr16.162302.9531@88open.org>
Lines: 30

In article <1993Apr16.162302.9531@88open.org>, I wrotes
> When I try to start X, it fails with a message about KBDFORCEASCII ioctl
> inappropriate for device.
> 
> [...]
> | Hardware:                                                               |
> |    386DX2-66 256K 8MB                   Adaptec 1542B'                  |
> |    Quantum 240MB SCSI Drive             Archive Viper 2150 tape drive   |
> |    Oak 1MB SVGA Card                    3-button mouse on COM1          |
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT GET A CARD WITH OAK CHIPS!  It turns out Oak
Technology uses their own proprietary chipset which is unsupported in
XFree86.  Be sure to check any board you buy -- I have seen at least two
other Brand-X SVGA cards using these chips.

> [...]

As soon as I replaced the Oak with a Tseng, I was up and running.  The
followups and replies (thanks) indicated that X had tried to start, then
exited without doing anything.  Since xinit failed to print out any dotclock
values, I realized the initialization of the display card was failing.  I had
previously assumed (incorrectly) the KBDFORCEASCII message was related to my
problem.

   ferg
-- 
=============================================================================
John C. Ferguson          88open Consortium, Ltd.              (408) 436-6600
ferg@88open.org           100 Homeland Court  suite 800    FAX (408) 436-0725
                          San Jose,  CA  95112