*BSD News Article 47035


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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!werple.mira.net.au!twod
From: twod@werple.mira.net.au (Ian Parkin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: BSD 2.0 & S3 Xfree woes
Date: 17 Jul 1995 08:10:51 GMT
Organization: werple public-access Internet, Melbourne
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Message-ID: <3ud5ub$39q@eplet.mira.net.au>
NNTP-Posting-Host: werple.mira.net.au
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]

Hi,

Having a few problems with the XFree release on the FreeBSD 2.0 CD, 2.0.5 is 
on order, but I don't think the problem lies in the release. 

I have a S3 (86C911, which is supported by Xfree) card and cannot get the 
accelerated S3 server to operate correctly. The server starts up, but 
the background is all messed up (squares of the background appear all over 
the display) and the xterms are just well out of contention (every 2nd or 
3rd character is missed and the outlines of the xterms are left when they
are dragged around the screen).

I created the config file using the supplied utility (xfree86config, or
something similar, but the Xfree supplied script) and have tried any
amount of manual tweaking after consulting all the relevant documentation
that I can find. I even used xclk !

Previously I was running the S3 server under the same release of Xfree
on Linux with no problems. Yep, I did try the linux config file and Nope, 
it didn't help :(

Dropping my level of expectations down I tried the SVGA server - this failed 
with an error indicating 'not enough memory' - I have 20Mb with 40Mb swap.
Again the config file was generated using the supplied utility.

Jeez, my expectations were dragging down by my knuckles as I resorted to 
the Xmono server. Again created the config file and fired X up and bingo 
all works well.

Suspecting that something needed to be configured in my kernel, other 
than that which allowed me to use Xmono, I scoured the documents for
the kernel, but couldn't see anything that I had missed.

Any thoughts, informed opinions, suggestions or wild guesses ?

BTW I was using the manual for my monitor, so the refresh rates,
etc that I used should be correct.

IAP