Re: Alpha gfx card support for Xorg

Jason Howe <[email protected]> Fri, 15 Oct 2021 08:21:52 -0700
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.gentoo.alpha
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
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Hi Marc,

The big issue with those cards is that starting with xorg 1.13, the 
driver model changed and a whole bunch of legacy cards lost anything but 
the most basic 2D drivers.   The result is that even a low spec GUI is 
kinda painful to use.

For those cards, you can always use the glint and s3virge in the 
VIDEO_CARDS section of of your /etc/portage/make.conf and see if the 
performance is acceptable to you.

On my DS20, I grabbed a VisionTek Radeon HD3450 PCI card off ebay for 
something like $30, which just builds with the radeon driver and 
associated firmware blobs in kernel config, and that's more than 
adequate for running even a 1920x1200 screen off the Alpha.

--Jason



On 10/14/21 9:16 AM, Marc Tipping wrote:
> Hi,
> I've a Permedia2 and Trio64v2 I could potentially use with X on the 
> DS10. The Gentoo Xorg doc is very modern GPU centric, I cant see any 
> info on legacy cards. Any thoughts on which driver(s)/config I need. 
> Even an 8bit twm session would be enough ;).
> Cheers
> M.
>
>
>
> Sent from my Galaxy
>

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    <p>Hi Marc,</p>
    <p>The big issue with those cards is that starting with xorg 1.13,
      the driver model changed and a whole bunch of legacy cards lost
      anything but the most basic 2D drivers.   The result is that even
      a low spec GUI is kinda painful to use.<br>
      <br>
      For those cards, you can always use the glint and s3virge in the
      VIDEO_CARDS section of of your /etc/portage/make.conf and see if
      the performance is acceptable to you.<br>
      <br>
      On my DS20, I grabbed a VisionTek Radeon HD3450 PCI card off ebay
      for something like $30, which just builds with the radeon driver
      and associated firmware blobs in kernel config, and that's more
      than adequate for running even a 1920x1200 screen off the
      Alpha.    <br>
    </p>
    <p>--Jason<br>
    </p>
    <h1 class="product-title"><br>
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    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/14/21 9:16 AM, Marc Tipping
      wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:AM0PR06MB6116B870709FA94036C79216E6B89@AM0PR06MB6116.eurprd06.prod.outlook.com">
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
      <div dir="auto">Hi,</div>
      <div dir="auto">I've a Permedia2 and Trio64v2 I could potentially
        use with X on the DS10. The Gentoo Xorg doc is very modern GPU
        centric, I cant see any info on legacy cards. Any thoughts on
        which driver(s)/config I need. Even an 8bit twm session would be
        enough ;). </div>
      <div dir="auto">Cheers</div>
      <div dir="auto">M.</div>
      <div dir="auto"><br>
      </div>
      <div dir="auto"><br>
      </div>
      <div dir="auto"><br>
      </div>
      <div id="composer_signature" dir="auto">
        <div style="font-size:85%;color:#575757" dir="auto">Sent from my
          Galaxy</div>
      </div>
      <div dir="auto"><br>
      </div>
    </blockquote>
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