How to - Resolve Xvesa issue

[tclfan]

Hi Juanito,

Thanks. I am all for simplicity, one resolution is fine, so xsession-in-backup route is OK for me. I meant to say only that I do not understand that xsession already appears to have the right parameters (resolution), which I see via cat ~/.xsession from console. Therefore it appears there is nothing to change in xsession that I can see... However it still does not work unless I go through manual setting resolution (via xsetup) during boot. This is what I fail to understand and how saving xsession in backup will help, unless overtyping xsession parameters with the same content does something mysterious to make it work...
I will need to get to the bottom of this, TCL is too precious gem not to spend time on ironing these things...

[Juanito]

Is it possible your machine will do 1024x768x24, but not (the default) 1024x768x32?

[tclfan]

Is it possible your machine will do 1024x768x24, but not (the default) 1024x768x32?

I believe it can do both. However I tried the boot codes of vga=792, 791 and 790, exhausting all these variants, and all of them dumped me to the console prompt rather than desktop..

[tclfan]

Xvesa doesn't have adequate support for wide screen resolutions

I hate to dwell on this sore point, but considering all laptops in the recent years are widescreen, what does it take to re-instate Xvesa maintenance project, if it is in fact not maintained anymore? I do not suppose there is no interest in light graphics anymore, and we are all doomed to bloat! Considering light and increasingly better systems that have been popping up: Austrumi, SliTaz, and most recently -  the gem of all gems - TCL, looks to me that appreciation of efficiency and dexterity is not dead yet and it would make people happy if this Xvesa thing is finally updated...

[Jason W]

There is the Xvesa extension in the repo that is from Xorg 7.1.  It may have more features than the one in base other than the numlock led given that it is twice the size of the one in base.  The Xvesa in base was picked for it's good feature/size ratio.  

I too was not happy to hear that Xvesa was no longer being developed.  But to be honest, even if Xvesa was still maintained the current version would not be in base and may not even be an extension.  The list of dependencies and features kept growing, and was getting bloated by TC standards.  The Xvesa from Xorg 7.1 was the last one to not need any dependencies outside of base.  This is not to complain about Xvesa as it is a valued part of TC.  But older versions of it suit our purposes more than the most recent.  

[tclfan]

There is the Xvesa extension in the repo that is from Xorg 7.1.  It may have more features than the one in base other than the numlock led given that it is twice the size of the one in base.  The Xvesa in base was picked for it's good feature/size ratio.  

Jason,

Thank you for this insight. For the sake of efficiency I would rather put up with bad display than bloat, so I trust the right decisions were made under circumstances. Sounds like the Xvesa extension extension you mentioned is not worth consideration even as TCL extension, option for microcore?

[Jason W]

The Xvesa extension should work fine.  Not only do the later Xvesas have more dependencies, but I read that there is brokenness in them in it's last releases.  I was considering trying for a minimal dependency build of a later Xvesa but from what I have gathered I don't think it would help much over what is already available in the Xvesa extension in the repo.

The Xorg-xvesa-lite.tce is only 1mb compressed, less than twice the size of the Xvesa extension and it perhaps would be a good way when Xvesa does not meet the system's needs. 

[^thehatsrule^]

Is it possible your machine will do 1024x768x24, but not (the default) 1024x768x32?

I believe it can do both. However I tried the boot codes of vga=792, 791 and 790, exhausting all these variants, and all of them dumped me to the console prompt rather than desktop..

If trying to use the fb, I think xfbdev is needed (although I'm not sure what the 'dumped' part means)

There is the Xvesa extension in the repo that is from Xorg 7.1.  It may have more features than the one in base other than the numlock led given that it is twice the size of the one in base.  The Xvesa in base was picked for it's good feature/size ratio. 

Jason,

Thank you for this insight. For the sake of efficiency I would rather put up with bad display than bloat, so I trust the right decisions were made under circumstances. Sounds like the Xvesa extension extension you mentioned is not worth consideration even as TCL extension, option for microcore?

If you are using MC, they are already offered as core elements.

Also, widescreen is somewhat supported iirc (I think some version of vbe is needed... 2.0?).  As Jason pointed out, -listmodes should tell you what's available.

[tclfan]

Thank you, Thehatsrule,

By 'dumped' I did not mean to imply that the command prompt is less appreciated than desktop but only that leaving me at the command prompt rather than proceeding to the desktop was not my objective at the moment...
On the serious side, it will take me some time to experiment with the options Jason and you suggest. If someone has experience in these, hints would be greatly appreciated...

[^thehatsrule^]

Actually, I meant that as wondering why xsetup would be needed if a working .xsession was backed up.

[tclfan]

Actually, I meant that as wondering why xsetup would be needed if a working .xsession was backed up.

It should not be needed.  I did not get around to test it yet, however. Only I will have to use xsetup initially, since only this manual process gets me desktop in the first place. No vga= override appears to work for me. But again, .xsession parameters appear to be fine anyway, so I do not understand what this manual process does in addition, that I do not see.
Thanks again.