Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 10:55:32 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu> Cc: sthaug@nethelp.no, imp@village.org, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [jgrosch@mooseriver.com: Re: Beginning SPARC port] Message-ID: <19971214105532.35984@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971213191637.14104R-100000@picnic.mat.net>; from Chuck Robey on Sat, Dec 13, 1997 at 07:20:23PM -0500 References: <19971214093514.22194@lemis.com> <Pine.BSF.3.96.971213191637.14104R-100000@picnic.mat.net>
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On Sat, Dec 13, 1997 at 07:20:23PM -0500, Chuck Robey wrote: > On Sun, 14 Dec 1997, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> On Sat, Dec 13, 1997 at 06:40:10PM +0100, sthaug@nethelp.no wrote: >>>>> Spot on. With an appropriate cable, any halfway-decent PC monitor will >>>>> handle all of the standard Sun video modes. >>>> >>>> And with the right xf86 config file, you can use a sun monitor on a pc >>> >>> As far as I know that's not true of *all* Sun monitors, because not all >>> Sun monitors are multisync. I believe all *recent* Sun monitors are >>> multisync, though. >> >> A multisync monitor isn't a prerequisite for XFree86. Many (most?) >> newer display boards have programmable clocks, so you can set up a >> mode line to generate the correct frequencies for a specific Sun >> monitor. > > Dangerous to give out that advice, Greg. Many older Sun monitors were > single frequency monitors, and while Xfree86 could be prpogrammed to work > with them, during boot, when the monitors are in 640X400, they just can't > handle that at all, and will just burn out while tring to get to X11 mode. Well, the advice didn't suggest to use them during boot. As Warner points out, it works. As I point out in "The Complete FreeBSD", bad settings can burn out your monitor. > It requires a specially programmed video card that, when the bios > tells it to go to 640X400, ignores that and stays where it's > hardware optioned to be. If I were to do this (and I might--I have a 17" Sun monitor out in the shed), I'd put it on a second display board. There are numerous ways to handle this problem, for example turning the monitor off during boot and until you can start xdm. I probably wouldn't have sent this message to -questions without a few more caveats, but I think -hackers people can think for themselves. Greg
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