stefan isaacs wrote:

> I get half a display, predominantly in green/purple and yellow. Makes
> me a bit cross-eyed to use it.

Friendly advice (not criticism, just a tip): you need to also identify
the exact video card make and model (mentioned in dmesg or Apple System
Profiler), if you want to give people who don't have your hardware/setup
(probably most people reading this) the info they need to help you.

I don't have your exact hardware or video card, but (next best thing)
I've run into the exact symptoms you describe using an Old World box
from around this era that has an IMS TT video running on YDL 3's 2.4
kernel . . . whenever I try to run it at a videomem/resolution higher
than what the kernel recognizes (in my case, 3912k max out of 8192k
total). Basically, the 2.4 kernel rewrite hosed some of the Old World
video hardware detection routines at boot, so you have to set the MacOS
side to the kernel's (implicit and undocumented) maximum usable videomem
by trial and error - for me, that's 1152x870@millions (with an annoying
6-pixel underscan for width) . . . or 1024x768@millions (no odd side
effects). Once you have this, you need to check the no video drivers
box in BootX, and then run the X setup program from console/command line
as root when you log in on the linux side.

BTW, you can run higher resolutions at thousands of colors, but you may
have to change the 16 bit color in your XFree86 conf file to 15 by hand.
At the end of all that fiddling, you'll have a single "fixed" but
usable resolution - with accelaration even, if you have a driver for
your card (if it's an IMS, you won't and you'll have to get/compile it).

You can also do end runs around the issue by going back to a 2.2 kernel
or the Xpmac driver, but IMO the hassle created outweighs the benefits.

> I really don't understand why the anaconda looked so great during the
> install and the video choice is so poor under X11. I chose "Generic OF
> video" (that's what it came with after a probe) - though it only selected
> 2Mb video, 1024x768 res with thousands of colors, and the Apple Multiscan 1705
> monitor.

YDL cheats and uses a different, earlier/smaller version of X during
install, uses minimalist and likely-to-succeed 640x480x15 or 800x600x15
resolutions during install, and doesn't attempt acceleration by default
during install (at least on my card). It flies high by aiming low.

Hope this helped,

D.

stefan_isaacs@yahoo.com (stefan isaacs) wrote in message news:<56aa769d.0311081141.8df27e3@posting.google.com>...
> Hi there,
>
> I could definitely use a hand. I've just installed Yellow Dog 3.0.1
> on my 604e/180 (104Mb, 4Mb VRAM) and the install went peachy (when I
> replaced the CDROM with a more recent one).
>
> But the moment it goes into the X Window Server things go a bit south.
> I get half a display, predominantly in green/purple and yellow. Makes
> me a bit cross-eyed to use it.
>
> I really don't understand why the anaconda looked so great during the
> install and the video choice is so poor under X11. I chose "Generic OF
> video" (that's what it came with after a probe) - though it only selected
> 2Mb video, 1024x768 res with thousands of colors, and the Apple Multiscan 1705
> monitor.
>
> So, to summarize, I can use the video it's set at currently - barely -
> but I'm trying to figure out what the right choice is.
>
> Any help would be much appreciated.
>
> thanks much,
> Stefan Fielding-Isaacs


To partially answer my own question - I got the box running last night
(after 5-6hrs of twiddling settings) with 832x624x32 using the fbdev
driver.

I do not have a video card, just the 4Mb VRAM DIMMs that it comes with -
of which the kernel only seems to recognize 2Mb (when it autoprobes).
Resolutions less than 32 give me this weird colormap problem - green and
purple windows, almost illegible.

So I'll continue to hunt for higher resolutions, but perhaps this will
help some other soul.

This PowerMac is based on the Catalyst design - also used in the PowerMac
7200. However, the "platinumfb" didn't work worth a damn. I've been
unable to determine the graphic chipset used on the mobo, either.

thanks,
Stefan