I'm trying to get a Silicon Motion 501 based graphics interface to
work under XFree86 4.3 (Linux) and experience some problems which I
believe is related to the driver not handling big endian correctly.

However, to rule out X11 itself (including potential problems in my
compilation) I would like to get a PCI based graphics card to work in
the machine. I've tried Matrox Millenium, S3 Virge, Tseng ET4000, SIS
6326, and Cirrus 5446 without any luck.

So, does anybody have a PowerPC based system successfully running
XFree86 (presumably version 4.3) with a PCI based graphics card. If
yes, which graphics card are you using?

Thank you
Best regards
Petter Gustad

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newsmailcomp5@gustad.com wrote:
> I'm trying to get a Silicon Motion 501 based graphics interface to
> work under XFree86 4.3 (Linux) and experience some problems which I
> believe is related to the driver not handling big endian correctly.
>
> However, to rule out X11 itself (including potential problems in my
> compilation) I would like to get a PCI based graphics card to work in
> the machine. I've tried Matrox Millenium, S3 Virge, Tseng ET4000, SIS
> 6326, and Cirrus 5446 without any luck.
>
> So, does anybody have a PowerPC based system successfully running
> XFree86 (presumably version 4.3) with a PCI based graphics card. If
> yes, which graphics card are you using?

I seen people say they have been successfull with install of linux with X on
systems with Voodoo, so if you can borrow one of those cards, then test that.

Don't think big endian does do that much in this case, maybe you haven't
managed to set the BusID variable right for your PCI card.

I do suggest you take a look at the APUS Linux installations for help on using
PCI based graphics cards, as the classic Amiga haven't had the possibility to
use AGP cards (think an AGP based expantion card is in the final stages before
release), and those people seems to have X for their PowerPC based linux installs.


//Aho

"newsmailcomp5" == newsmailcomp5 writes:

newsmailcomp5> So, does anybody have a PowerPC based system
newsmailcomp5> successfully running XFree86 (presumably version
newsmailcomp5> 4.3) with a PCI based graphics card. If yes, which
newsmailcomp5> graphics card are you using?

There are a lot of use out ther, unless you mean "PCI" to specifically
mean "not in the AGP slot."

I'm running Debian/Sarge on a Dual CPU Apple G5 (PowerMac7,3). The
card is a GeForce FX5200. It is an AGP, but that is still a PCI
card. I don't use the AGP module. Debian's packaging of XFree86 4.3
runs great.

Cheers!
Shyamal

"J.O. Aho" writes:

> I seen people say they have been successfull with install of linux
> with X on systems with Voodoo, so if you can borrow one of those
> cards, then test that.

I'll see what I can find.

> Don't think big endian does do that much in this case, maybe you
> haven't managed to set the BusID variable right for your PCI card.

I beleive it's right. The cards are detected and accessed, but the
driver will crash. The Silicon Motion card works (but the colors
appear to suffer from endian problems) in the same slot with the same
busid.

> I do suggest you take a look at the APUS Linux installations for help
> on using PCI based graphics cards, as the classic Amiga haven't had
> the possibility to use AGP cards (think an AGP based expantion card is
> in the final stages before release), and those people seems to have X
> for their PowerPC based linux installs.

I'll try to google for Amiga installations.

Thanks
Petter

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Shyamal Prasad writes:

> "newsmailcomp5" == newsmailcomp5 writes:
>
> newsmailcomp5> So, does anybody have a PowerPC based system
> newsmailcomp5> successfully running XFree86 (presumably version
> newsmailcomp5> 4.3) with a PCI based graphics card. If yes, which
> newsmailcomp5> graphics card are you using?
>
> There are a lot of use out ther, unless you mean "PCI" to specifically
> mean "not in the AGP slot."

That's what I mean. I need to obtain a PCI card that will go in a PCI
slot since my machine does not have an AGP slot.

Petter
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Shyamal Prasad writes:

> "newsmailcomp5" == newsmailcomp5 writes:
>
> newsmailcomp5> So, does anybody have a PowerPC based system
> newsmailcomp5> successfully running XFree86 (presumably version
> newsmailcomp5> 4.3) with a PCI based graphics card. If yes, which
> newsmailcomp5> graphics card are you using?
>
> There are a lot of use out ther, unless you mean "PCI" to specifically
> mean "not in the AGP slot."
>
> I'm running Debian/Sarge on a Dual CPU Apple G5 (PowerMac7,3). The
> card is a GeForce FX5200. It is an AGP, but that is still a PCI
> card. I don't use the AGP module. Debian's packaging of XFree86 4.3
> runs great.


Hi Shyamal,

I purchased a GeForce FX5200 card, but it does not work. The driver
loads and everything seems fine, except that there is no image on the
monitor (I've tested the card in an X86 machine where it works, at
least in VGA mode). I tried XFree86 4.3 and XFree86 4.4. It appears
that GeForce FX5200 is not GeForce FX5200. I checked the XFree86 4.4
nVidia driver and there are several FX5200 cards, namely:

PCI
DeviceId Product Name
0x0322 "GeForce FX 5200"
0x0323 "GeForce FX 5200SE"
0x0324 "GeForce FX Go5200"
0x0325 "GeForce FX Go5250"
0x0328 "GeForce FX Go5200 32M/64M"
0x0329 "GeForce FX 5200 (Mac)"

I have the 0x0322 card. I suspect you have the card with DeviceId
0x0329, could you confirm this? It would be interesting to know why
they have a different FX5200 chip for the Mac/PowerPC. Does anybody
know?

Petter


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newsmailcomp5@gustad.com wrote:

> I have the 0x0322 card. I suspect you have the card with DeviceId
> 0x0329, could you confirm this? It would be interesting to know why
> they have a different FX5200 chip for the Mac/PowerPC. Does anybody
> know?

The Mac don't understand the x86 "BIOS" that is on the default graphics cards,
the Mac needs a PPC based "BIOS" or else they won't work. Your card will never
work in a Mac.

Pegasos and Teron boards can handle the x86 "BIOS" on graphics cards and will
work fine with all the cards except the ones special made for Macs.


//Aho

"J.O. Aho" writes:

> newsmailcomp5@gustad.com wrote:
>
> > I have the 0x0322 card. I suspect you have the card with DeviceId
> > 0x0329, could you confirm this? It would be interesting to know why
> > they have a different FX5200 chip for the Mac/PowerPC. Does anybody
> > know?
>
> The Mac don't understand the x86 "BIOS" that is on the default
> graphics cards, the Mac needs a PPC based "BIOS" or else they won't
> work. Your card will never work in a Mac.

I'm not using a Mac, but a PMC based PowerPC card. I'm not using VGA,
but the XFree86 driver which should operate without the BIOS? I'can
boot the driver will detect the card.

The SiliconMoition card which is my target works on a X86 based PC. It
also works in my PowerPC based machine, except the colors are wrong
(most likely to the big-endian CPU). What I wan't to do is to get my
PowerPC machine up and running using X11 with any graphics card to
verify that my X11 build is correct.

Petter
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newsmailcomp5@gustad.com writes:
>I'm not using a Mac, but a PMC based PowerPC card. I'm not using VGA,
>but the XFree86 driver which should operate without the BIOS?

The BIOS may perform initialization that the driver does not.

Two examples:

- (On a PC) the Xfree and X.org "radeon" drivers did not work on a
Radeon 9250 once I had used the proprietary "fglrx" driver.
Apparently the fglrx driver left the card in a state where the free
driver no longer worked.

- On the Alpha an 8086/80386 emulator is used to execute the BIOS of
video cards. Apparently that is necessary to initialize the cards
correctly.

Does your PowerPC system use Open Firmware? Then the Mac version of
the card should work for you. Maybe you can reflash the ROM of the
card with the Open Firmware.

- anton
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anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:

> newsmailcomp5@gustad.com writes:
> >I'm not using a Mac, but a PMC based PowerPC card. I'm not using VGA,
> >but the XFree86 driver which should operate without the BIOS?
>
> The BIOS may perform initialization that the driver does not.
>
> Two examples:
>
> - (On a PC) the Xfree and X.org "radeon" drivers did not work on a
> Radeon 9250 once I had used the proprietary "fglrx" driver.
> Apparently the fglrx driver left the card in a state where the free
> driver no longer worked.
>
> - On the Alpha an 8086/80386 emulator is used to execute the BIOS of
> video cards. Apparently that is necessary to initialize the cards
> correctly.

Thank you for your reply.

There is no technical reason for this, is it? This could have been in
the driver itself. I would assume the reasons are political. The
question would be if something like this is done in the fx5200 card.

> Does your PowerPC system use Open Firmware? Then the Mac version of
> the card should work for you. Maybe you can reflash the ROM of the
> card with the Open Firmware.

No Open Firmware. I have u-boot flashed and boot and run diskless.

But Shyamal appears to have a working card, which is not labeled as a
specific mac edition according to the nv driver source.

I'm currently trying to port the siliconmotion driver with 501 support
to powerpc. This works, but the colors are all wrong (endian problems
I beleive). The cursors are mirrored. Bitmap fonts are mirrored, but
vector fonts are ok. I've compiled XFree natively and cross compiled
it on an X86 machine. The results are the same . I would like to
verify that I can get XFree86 up and running correctly on a different
card (like the fx5200). If it does I know that it's likely that the
problem is in the siliconmotion driver and not somewhere else in
XFree86.

Petter
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