aty128fb - ATI Rage128 framebuffer driver

This is a driver for a graphic framebuffer for ATI Rage128 based deviceson Intel and PPC boxes.

Advantages:

  • It provides a nice large console (128 cols + 48 lines with 1024x768)without using tiny, unreadable fonts.

  • You can run XF68_FBDev on top of /dev/fb0

  • Most important: boot logo :-)

Disadvantages:

  • graphic mode is slower than text mode... but you should not noticeif you use same resolution as you used in textmode.

  • still experimental.

How to use it?

Switching modes is done using the video=aty128fb:<resolution>... modedbboot parameter or usingfbset program.

Seemodedb default video mode support for more information on modedbresolutions.

You should compile in both vgacon (to boot if you remove your Rage128 frombox) and aty128fb (for graphics mode). You should not compile-in vesafbunless you have primary display on non-Rage128 VBE2.0 device (seevesafb - Generic graphic framebuffer driver for details).

X11

XF68_FBDev should generally work fine, but it is non-accelerated. As ofthis document, 8 and 32bpp works fine. There have been palette issueswhen switching from X to console and back to X. You will have to restartX to fix this.

Configuration

You can pass kernel command line options to vesafb withvideo=aty128fb:option1,option2:value2,option3 (multiple options shouldbe separated by comma, values are separated from options by:).Accepted options:

noaccel

do not use acceleration engine. It is default.

accel

use acceleration engine. Not finished.

vmode:x

chooses PowerMacintosh video mode <x>. Deprecated.

cmode:x

chooses PowerMacintosh colour mode <x>. Deprecated.

<XxX@X>

selects startup videomode. Seemodedb default video mode support for detailedexplanation. Default is 640x480x8bpp.

Limitations

There are known and unknown bugs, features and misfeatures.Currently there are following known bugs:

  • This driver is still experimental and is not finished. Too manybugs/errata to list here.

Brad Douglas <brad@neruo.com>