From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: More Questions from a Beginner.
Date: 6 Oct 92 08:26:41 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

maniac@lil-ed.cs.unlv.edu (Eric J. Schwertfeger) writes:

>First, is Linux 386-pure, or does it drop to V86 mode for I/O (for
>bios calls?)

It is entirely protected-mode.  It does not use the BIOS for I/O.

>Second, is the long-filename support out yet?  I found some documentation
>saying that it was expected out with the 0.97 boot image, that it
>isn't out with the 0.97pl1, it's expected out with the 0.98 boot image,
>and nothing indicating it is out in the 0.98 boot image that I just found,
>(haven't had the chance to try it yet).

Sort of.  There's a separate file system type that has long file
names.  My personal advice is to stick with the default file system,
until the current redesign of the extended file system is finished
and it has been debugged.

>Booting is still a mystery, since I'm still using the disk-based boot and
>root images.   Is it possible to set up a HD so that you can boot into linux
>off of the hard disk?  Is it possible to set up a dual-boot HD?

Yes.  The Linux hard disk bootstrap is called LILO.  The installation
instructions tell you how to set up LILO so that you can select Linux
or any other system.

>Finally, a few Free386X questions.  What video cards does the current 
>FreeX support beyond 800x600?  I get the impression that just about
>everything is supported at 640x480, but the only other references I've 
>found concern the ET4000 chipset.  And why doesn't the SpeedStar24 work
>with Free386X?  I'd like to know, since I'll be getting a new VGA card
>soon, and intend on avoiding such problems.

There's a list of supported chipsets: et3000, et4000, gvga, pvga.
People are working on various others, but I think at the moment most
people are using ET4000.  The only problem I have with that is that
the ET4000 doesn't seem to have a builtin bitblt.  This makes
scrolling (which is pretty important for xterm, emacs, etc.) slow.
Thus ideally you'd probably want one of the S3 or ATI accelerated
boards.  But based on what I've seen hear it doesn't sound like
they're quite ready.  Maybe somebody could give us projections.  The
problem with the Diamond controllers is that although they use the
ET4000, the technique for setting clock speeds is proprietary.  It
sounds like one can work around this in various ways, but it's not
desirable.  One source of information is the X386 database, which is
on export.lcs.mit.edu in contrib/X386.modeDB.Z.  The main thing that
will tell you is that someone has used the board successfully, and you
can get an idea of how fast it is.  There are several boards that go
up to 80 MHz.  That's fine for 1024x768, but I think it's marginal for
higher resolutions.  What that file doesn't do is give you more
detailed reviews.  I'd be happy to give information on the Cardinal
700 and Orchid Prodesigner IIs, but I don't know who to give it to.
(The basics are in that file, though the Cardinal 700 entry doesn't
note that the 90 MHz speed seems not to be usable, and the 80 MHz
speed is only usable for 1024x768 -- which fortunately is what you'd
want to use it for.)