mdacon problem

[Marek Szuba <scriptkiddie@wp.pl>]

Hello,

Recently I have attempted to, in addition to my Matrox framebuffer
console, enable a second head text console using mdacon driver;
unfortunately I have been able neither to get it working nor to find any
information on this in the docs or on the net.

First of all, some technical data - the kernel I use at present is 2.6.7
(following problems with 2.6.9 which I shall describe in a separate
post) and the second-head graphics card is an old PCI SVGA (which I
believe might be the reason why it doesn't work; then again, AFAIK it is
compatible with the MDA mode).

What happened:
1. The second card got installed in a free PCI slot and the system got
booted. The primary graphics card works as usual, the monitor connected
to the secondary one remains in power-saving mode.

2. Having compiled the appropriate kernel module and loaded it with
"modprobe mdacon mda_first_vc=13 mda_last_vc=24", the following got sent
to syslog:
Nov 14 00:24:23 host kernel: mdacon: MDA with 8K of memory detected.    
                          
Nov 14 00:24:23 host kernel: Console: switching consoles 13-24 to MDA-2 
                          

3. Nothing else happened: the primary display works as usual and the
secondary monitor remains in off mode.

I have also tried loading the module with no options, obtaining
"Console: switching consoles 1-16 to MDA-2 80x25" but rendering the text
console unusable (probably due to fbcon).

Could you shed any light on the issue? If you need any more information,
please don't hesitate to ask.

Regards,
-- 
MS