Re: [tbox-l] Re: color depth and backgrounds

[Timothy J. B. <tj...@st...>]

On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, Paul Clarke wrote:

> Hopefully I won't add further confusion, but I know the GXT25x class of
> adapters was unusual in the flexibility of it's memory usage.  There's yet
> another option related to this:  "-layer".  The "-layer" option tells the X
> server in which layer (overlay or not) to run the root window and thus the
> default visual.  And, overlay visuals are limited to 8 bits.  Check out the
> Installation manual for the GXT25x adapters at
> http://www.rs6000.ibm.com/resource/hardware_docs/english/a4a23mst.htm,
> under "System Considerations".

It would be quite difficult to add any confusion to this.  8-(

Thanks for the pointer, I had not noticed the usefull info on that section
(or maybe I had been looking up other stuff in the sales manual).  At any
rate, there seems nothing in the layer discussion that allows me to set
the root window to be high or true color.  The manual indeed indicates
that the previously suggested -x -dbe would support both modes.  Withouth
specifying color depth, but just the dbe on the xinit line gets me the 256
colors and xmperf fails to allocate colors under gnome.  Specifying a 16
or 24 bit color depth causes X to fail on startup.

At this point, I am left with the conclusion that those folks for whom
this is working fine are in fact running on more modern hardware than I
have access to.  Of course, if there is anybody out there stuck with a
GXT255P in an 830 I would love to hear that it works.  And perhaps share
condolences....

Cheers

"I'm a big fan of ignorance based techniques, because humans 
have a lot of ignorance, and we want to play our strong suit."
  Eric Lander  New Scientist