Re: 2.6.0-test6 ruby success with matrox G550, and some questions

[Svetoslav S. <sv...@gm...>]

Hi,

> Yesterday I got two xservers running with 2.6.0-test6-ruby
> Both screens are connected to the matrox G550.
> The one running on the main console uses the normal
> accelerated X server, and a keyboard connected to the mouse port.
> The X config for this display isn't modified, it is
> the single-user setup I always had.
> 
> The other screen uses the unaccelerated framebuffer driver
> on /dev/fb/1, and a keyboard connected to the normal keyboard
> connector.  Both mice are serial.
> 
> Framebuffer X was easy to set up.  The first attempt was right,
> except it didn't work until I got the matroxset program
> that must be used to decide which framebuffer is displayed
> to which connector.  (The default is to see the first
> framebuffer on both!)  I haven't made startup scripts
> yet, so I start the second Xserver from an xterm.

How did you got it running?
i'm tring with no success quite a long time.

which version of XFree ?
which matrox drivers?

if i try to start accelerated X,
X doesn't want to start and is eating ~100% of the cpu
X on fbdev seems to start, but no output to Monitor 

> I did nothing special with the sound setup.  Both
> screens are positioned between a shared pair of
> speakers.  The alsa drivers for my trident 4D NX supports
> several simultaneous users and does its own mixing.
> 
> The long term plan is to use two accelerated X servers.
> Ideally by getting acceleration on both heads - but that
> seems very unlikely.  The second best solution seems
> to be a pci graphichs card.  I am waiting, hoping to find
> some pci card that supports DRI in such a way that
> I can use DRI on both screens simultaneously.

two things here:
1.) DRI doesn't support multiple cards
(and it doesn't seems this to be on the TODO list
 of the DRI developers)
only choice is to use Nvidia cards with the closed source driver

2.) even if DRI supported multiple cards
 all heads have to be addressable by the driver.
with Gxxx DH this doable only with fbdev driver
which doesn't support DRI, XV, .....
(G200/450 MMS series could work as they have
different BusID's, but are untested -- too expensive)


> 
> The questions:
> 2.6.0-test6-ruby seems to hate framebuffer console, hanging the
> machine before the first boot printk if I enable it.
> Is framebuffer console possible somehow?
> I currently need framebuffer in order to run X.  And a
> console is nice to have in case I get X trouble.
> I currently only have screen garbage until X starts.
> Having some framebuffer consoles on the other screen
> would be nice too.  fbcon also has the advantage
> that it can be set up with the same video timing as X,
> allowing console switching without waiting for the
> screen to sync to another frequency.  

probably it's the matroxfb driver,
Petr (the maintainer) still doesn't like the new FB API,
and is still working on a more complete driver using different fb API,
the in kernel driver is not that developed and with limited functionality,
try searching lkml on smth like "matroxfb 2.5" 

> I use the kernel parameter "dumbcon=1" to tell ruby that I have an extra
> console.  Is this documented anywhere?

1.) http://startx.times.lv
2.) the linuxconsole ml
3.) my howto 
in progres (merging ruby-2.6
stuff)
http://varna.demon.co.uk/~svetlio/ruby-contrib/how-to/XFree-Local-multi-user-HOWTO/index.html
stable (no mention of ruby-2.6) is on any tldp.org mirror

best,

svetljo

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