RE: X Windows Performance with DOC 2000

David Cooper
2002-06-21T00:24:50Z

David,

Yes, when I use a kernel with the MTD support built-in for DoC 2000 and nftl
I can still run X with the DoC in the system (unless I use the M-Systems 4.2
firmware which prevents X from running with or without MTD support). I have
not tried loading and unloading MTD support as a kernel module. Maybe this
is worth a go.

Interestingly, I can run SVGAlib applications from the DoC (using the VESA
driver) without any trouble. This is confusing because I would imagine that
the SVGAlib VESA driver and the XFree86 VESA driver are both accessing the
VESA BIOS.

M-Systems have told me that the firmware DoC driver that loads into memory
at bootup sometimes conflicts in memory space that linux is trying to use.
I suppose this would explain why using different firmware versions can
prevent X from running from the IDE drive.

Cheers,

David

-----Original Message-----
From: David Woodhouse [mailto:dwmw2@redhat.com]On Behalf Of David
Woodhouse
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 5:59 PM
To: David Cooper
Cc: Ilguiz Latypov; Linux MTD
Subject: Re: X Windows Performance with DOC 2000

david@forcedpotato.com said:
> (3) X Modules
> I then was able to look at the X log file (/var/log/XFree86.0.log) and
> it seemed that the point at which X fell over was when it was trying
> to load the ddc module (libddc.a). So I then mounted the entire /usr/
> X11R6/lib/modules directory from the IDE drive and ran the rest from
> the root filesystem on the DOC. This allows X to get a little further
> (seems to try to load a screen from the VESA BIOS). But it still
> hangs, this time after putting rubbish graphics on the screen (as in a
> normal initialisation).

> Question: Why does X have trouble loading the libddc.a module from
> the DOC?

Interesting. The DDC module is likely to be using the VESA BIOS too -- you
may find that your box is dying when XFree86 tries to do _anything_
BIOS-related.

You said X works when you run it from the IDE drive. Do you have the
DiskOnChip drivers loaded? If not, does it still work when you run it from
IDE after loading them?

--
dwmw2