[svlug] laptop with S3 ViRGE/MX+

[Rick Kwan]

Well, this is my first post to the list.  I don't think I've seen
this discussed yet, but traffic is really getting heavy...

Anyone got Linux running on notebook with S3 ViRGE/MX+ ?
The specific chip in question is 86C280.

I just bought a notebook and asked the vendor to install RedHat 5.1
on it.  I haven't been able to get the X server to work properly.
It is also unclear to me if the latest XFree86 distribution is
able to handle this chip or not.  (They do cite 86C260.)  I tried
the latest XF86_SVGA and got weird results.  (Got stuck in grey
background before actual window system comes up.)

Apparantly, the vendor has had some notebooks returned in the past
because Linux would not run properly with the newer S3 chip in them.
So far as I can tell, this chip differs from previous S3 ViRGE in
that output can go to the LCD, external SVGA, or external TV (NTSC
or PAL).  It's really cool to have the notebook output direct drive
a large TV, except I can't do it in Linux yet.

I told the vendor that rather than immediately return the notebook,
I'd try to hunt this down... to which the vendor was overjoyed.
If I get this resolved, I probably will get a chance to do a Linux
show-and-tell with the rest of the engineers there.

So... anyone got an idea what's happening?

--Rick Kwan, Lightsaber Computing
  rick.kwan at lightsaber.com


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