Re: [PLUG] Video Adapter Imcompatibility

[Jeff Abrahamson <abrahj01@molbio.sbphrd.com>]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2000 at 12:30:08AM -0400, Greg Lopp wrote:
> Lawrence Goodman wrote:
> 
> > I have a Chromatic Research Media Mpact video adapter in my computer. It's
> > not supported by any version of linux. When I tried to load Corel on my
> > computer, it immediately rejected the cd because of this driver. Is there
> > any way to work around this problem? I am planning to try Caldera's linux
> > tonite. Anyone have any suggestions or am I screwed? (Unfortunately, the
> > company is out of business so I can't contact anyone official for help).
> >
> 
> Did a quick search at www.linuxhardware.net - you aren't the only person
> looking for help with this one, but there was a success story using
> framebuffer.
> 
> Check out http://www.uno.edu/~adamico/banshee/ for instructions.

I'd appreciate a summary of what the issue is. I've been watching this
thread with curiosity, because it is slightly at odds with my
understanding of graphics and XFree86.

Here's what I understand reality to be:

  - XF86 3.x does not have support for graphics card acceleration.
    XF86 4.x will but isn't finished yet.

  - Somehow, whether cached on the graphics card or in main memory
    manipulated by the CPU, there's a bitmap of the display. This
    bitmap is called the frame buffer.

  - In the case of hardware acceleration, the display server (X) says
    something like "draw a line from here to here." The card updates
    its bitmap accordingly. Without hardware acceleration, X has to
    implement Bresenham (sp?) on its own to draw that line. And so on
    for other graphics operations.

So I've been confused by the above thread's reference to "framebuffer
support." What does it mean to have a display without a backing
bitmap? Is a frame buffer something different?

I'd be grateful if someone could clarify for me what reality and/or
the thread is actually about?

Tia.

-- 
 Jeff Abrahamson
 610/270-4845
 abrahj01@molbio.sbphrd.com

 (home email is jeff_abrahamson@purple.com)

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