Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

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rchase
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Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#1 by rchase » 12 Jan 2016, 09:51

I have an old Celeron M with a 32MB S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR on the motherboard -- nomodeset and xforcevesa fail to get it to boot to a useable screen; it does boot to the desktop, but the icons on the taskbar seem to be squashed into one-pixel wide vertical lines on either side -- is there a useable driver for this old hardware or not? Are there other cheatcodes I should try?

aus9

Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#2 by aus9 » 12 Jan 2016, 12:28

hi
I also have an old Celeron M with a 32GB S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR on the motherboard
does this PC have an existing operating system on it?
If so what is the maximum resolution you can get with your current monitor

there is a video card driver for that chipset
http://linux.die.net/man/4/savage

that link provides more info on "Option UseBIOS boolean " yes or no

if Porteus does not have savage driver.....it should fall back to vesa driver

but there is also a report of a bug in the bios that affects some users. It might mean trying to boot up into graphical mode and then manually edit using root powers the xorg file to adjust for this parameter
Option "UseBios" "no"

to the "Device" section corresponding to the video card. (In the XF86Config)
its an old post so xorg.conf is the same thing

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... em-407581/

##################################################################################
OP thanks for the information and suggestions; I can edit xorg.conf, but what do I do with the S3 driver and the extant Porteus base to replace its xorg? The Celeron M is running Windows XP (WEPOS hack); the maximum resolution the S3 supports is 1600x1200 (16-bit color, 60Hz).

aus9

Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#3 by aus9 » 12 Jan 2016, 12:57

now that we have split your post into 2....I can chat away and others can join in as I am using Nemesis based on Archlinux while I suspect you are on Porteus based on Slackware.

the first thing is I assume you have made a bootable USB stick and have not attempted to destroy any files on internal drive....which I think is very wise.

Next you need to update the package manager for Porteus which from memory is

Code: Select all

sudo su
(input password = toor)
usm -u all
Now assuming you have the 32 bit Porteus
http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/ ... CKAGES.TXT

it looks like the next command might search and allow you to choose a certain driver for S3

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usm -s s3
if my memory is crap it might be uppercase s

and the candidates are:
xf86-video-savage (S3 Savage video driver for the Xorg X server)
xf86-video-s3virge (S3 ViRGE video driver for the Xorg X server)
xf86-video-s3 (Xorg driver for S3 chipsets other than ViRGE or Savage)

even tho you have a pro....its the top one you need not the s3.
Are there other cheatcodes I should try?
Yes we need you to be able to save changes because we need the driver download to be saved and then we can edit the xorg.conf file we mentioned earlier

so how did you boot porteus? cd or bootable usb stick?
how did you make bootable usb stick?

I use Nemesis so may not be able to help greatly but want I need is that your cheatcode needs to be
changes=/porteus
so that a changes directory is created on the usb stick so our changes are saved

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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#4 by Bogomips » 12 Jan 2016, 13:41

aus9 wrote:

Code: Select all

sudo su
(input password = toor)
usm -u all
OP might not have sudo, so under Slackware :wink:

Code: Select all

su
(input password = toor)
usm -u all
Linux porteus 4.4.0-porteus #3 SMP PREEMPT Sat Jan 23 07:01:55 UTC 2016 i686 AMD Sempron(tm) 140 Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
NVIDIA Corporation C61 [GeForce 6150SE nForce 430] (rev a2) MemTotal: 901760 kB MemFree: 66752 kB

rchase
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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#5 by rchase » 13 Jan 2016, 20:06

Thanks, all. I have been testing using a 32-bit Porteus XFCE USB installation with exfat support and the GUI tweaked to my liking. USM shows both s3virge and savage drivers already installed. I modified the xorg.conf-modesetting and xorg.conf-vesa files in /porteus/changes/etc/X11 as follows:

...
Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "modesetting"
UseBios "no"
EndSection
...

and

...
Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vesa"
UseBios "no"
EndSection
...

, respectively, then tried every combination of nomodeset and xforcevesa on and off with the same results: the desktop boots, without error messages (so far as I have noticed; it's fast), but the icons supposed to populate the taskbar do not display. I can click where the Whisker Menu button should be and the menu displays properly. I suppose that the CPU is doing graphical computation in lieu of the GPU, because redrawing is slow. The graphical cursor is mostly unresponsive and lags terribly.

As indicated, this S3 is on the motherboard. This would be an ideal machine for Porteus -- 2GB of RAM, a Celeron M overclocked to 1.83GHz -- but I've never gotten any desktop version of Linux to work on it because of the graphics. Should this hardware be written off in the great Porteus manual yet to be written? I'd rather do so than speculate.

aus9

Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#6 by aus9 » 13 Jan 2016, 23:31

Hi

if the savage driver exists and you already know how to edit your xorg.conf....why not try it?

1) that modesetting was never go to work BTW

2) try this

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "savage"
Option "UseBios" "no"
EndSection


ref
http://www.x.org/archive/current/doc/ma ... ge.4.xhtml

Assuming you have a changes= cheatcode and full reboot to test please.

Only if that works better....you can then see if your 32M can be forced into the setting?
Option "AGPSize" "32"

rchase
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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#7 by rchase » 17 Jan 2016, 06:02

aus9 wrote:Hi

if the savage driver exists and you already know how to edit your xorg.conf....why not try it?
I thought I just did. I will change the name of the driver in xorg.conf-vesa to "savage" and correct the syntax to "Option UseBios" -- I trust that using "nomodeset" and "xforcevesa" will invoke the driver in xorg.cong-vesa.

rchase
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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#8 by rchase » 18 Jan 2016, 06:27

aus9, replacing the Device section of xorg.conf-vesa with your suggested one for savage above and booting to graphics mode with the "nomodeset" and "xforcevesa" cheatcodes added yields the same results as before: Porteus boots to the desktop, slowly, but various elements are not displayed correctly or at all -- any more ideas, or shall I just continue to run XP WEPOS on it (which works well)?

aus9

Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#9 by aus9 » 18 Jan 2016, 10:09

xorg.conf-vesa ....I hope you have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf for this issue

please post the full contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf

rchase
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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#10 by rchase » 18 Jan 2016, 18:13

aus9 wrote:xorg.conf-vesa ....I hope you have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf for this issue

please post the full contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf
After installing Porteus 3.1 32-bit to an ext4-formatted flash drive, there is no X11 folder in /changes/etc. In my working Porteus installation's file system, /etc/X11 contains three items which seem to relate to xorg: an empty folder named "xorg.conf.d", xorg.conf-modesetting, and xorg.conf-vesa. I inferred that I should modify xorg.conf-vesa and place it in /changes/X11/etc on the flash drive for booting the savage system. I take it that I have inferred incorrectly, but I have no idea how to proceed.

aus9

Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#11 by aus9 » 19 Jan 2016, 00:04

I have no idea how to proceed
HI there is more than one way to proceed but lets do this step by step and I know that there will be a delay before I see your reply but you can self check some things

cheatcodes
In some of your earlier posts you may have indicated that you are using a cheat code like nomodeset and xforcevesa. From now on....I don't want you to have any such cheatcode once you have created the xorg.conf as the xorg.conf is to do the work. Let me know if you understand or never used those terms as cheatcodes

xorg.conf discussion
Modern xorg does not need this file for most users but in your case I think it does. But I am hoping we don't need what I will call a traditional config file that names and configures the screen, mouse and keyboard (some output and input devices). So first we will attempt the smallest config and wait for your feedback on its success and make changes from there. We will leave out the mouse and keyboard and on reboot if you can't use them.....report so.

text mode
After you make this config file and reboot and can't do a thing or it does not truly display a screen that is workable etc then you need to know how to get to text mode so you can then either delete the file or make it unreadable. So you will need to either manually edit your boot menu ---if this situation arises -- or create and an extra entra for text mode. Text mode means you boot up without the graphics starting so you arrive at prompt....a bit like the ms-dos prompt if you can remember such with windows.

Its pretty simple.....assuming you are using a changes menu just copy and paste that menu and rename its title to text
and on the line where you type changes= <something> add 3 without typing "add"
meaning runlevel 3

eg I use grub legacy and my entry reads for a changes cheatcode
title text
root (hd0,2)
kernel /grub/v root=LABEL=p3 changes=/porteus 3
initrd /grub/35.xz

but you may be using isolinux...I am not sure so if you need help post the output of this command pls

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cat /proc/cmdline
(and I show my changes menu to normal graphical)
quiet root=LABEL=p3 changes=/porteus
some references to read first
http://www.slackware.com/config/x.php

http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:beginners_guide
see this section
Start a Graphical Desktop Environment

How to login
I prefer you login as guest but some like to login as root as use a cheatcode to achieve this
please report how you login....in the meantime I assume you login as guest

find the name of the xfce-executable
While you are still in graphical mode find the name of the special file that starts the xfce graphical environment as I don't use Porteus

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su
(input pw)
find / -name startxfce*
with luck it will give you a result like /usr/bin/startxfce4 remember what ever it is...as you will need it later please
and report what it is too.

create file attempt one
You may need a second computer to read this or write down the steps?

first the explain then I attempt to show in by command
reboot into text mode and login as root
cd to /tmp
attempt to use a system command to generate a xorg.conf in your current dir=/tmp
copy that file to /etc/X11

optional copy that file to a spare partition available to you on reboot to show it contents if fails?
try and start graphical environment...thats the startxfce4 stuff

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login prompt $ root
(input pw)
cd /tmp
X -configure
cp xorg.conf* /etc/X11/xorg.conf
(optional with false name made up ) cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /mnt/sdb2/data
startxfce4

rchase
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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#12 by rchase » 19 Jan 2016, 16:45

Thanks for your helpful reply. Yes, I suppose that I understand the cheatcodes; I was using "nomodeset" and "xforcevesa" because the Porteus website suggests that they can resolve problems with video. I am using isolinux for this installation as I have no reason to replace the default bootloader. I login as root; I don't begin to have the patience to try to engage in system-modification as a user without the rights to do so! Parenthetically, it is completely mind-boggling to me that Linux distributions have attained such functionality and usability as they have when most enthusiasts and developers seem to revel in the recondite -- the many attempts to explain why one should not use the root account (so as not to give onlookers a "free computer", e.g.) strike me as bizarre, and call to mind the (somewhat) obsessed computer-genius surrounded by fellow students in a lab. Porteus, Nemesis -- they seem to be almost at the point where they could displace clunky, better-known OSs -- such as Windows. I realize that you all are not being paid anything to develop a superior OS, but I hope you, brokenman, Francois, etc. won't take it amiss if I suggest that you are almost there and that you should give more thought to standardization and consolidation -- how come the offical distribution is so far behind what you are now achieving? Porteus is quite useable already, and if just a little more consideration were given to end-users, it could multiply its base manyfold. I might assist with description.

I am now using the "Device" section you suggested, by itself, as xorg.conf and will use graphics mode (with only "noswap" added). If that doesn't work, I will proceed to follow your advice regarding text mode and generating a model xorg.conf to modify.
Last edited by rchase on 19 Jan 2016, 20:56, edited 1 time in total.

rchase
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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#13 by rchase » 19 Jan 2016, 20:42

Using the "Device" section you supplied above as xorg.conf didn't work. startxfce4 is in /mnt/live/memory/images/003-xfce.xzm/usr/bin and in /usr/bin. I then made a fresh installation of Porteus-XFCE-v3.1-i486.iso to a flash drive and booted to text mode. Upon issuing "cd /tmp" and "X -configure", Porteus returned:

"(++) Using config file: "/root/xorg.conf.new"
(==) Using system config directory "usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
Number of created screens does not match number of detected devices.
Configuration failed
(EE) Server terminated with error (2). Closing logfile."

aus9

Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#14 by aus9 » 19 Jan 2016, 22:58

Ok thanks for that info.

Did you keep a copy of that file by any chance...can you post its contents. If this site says its too large, upload it to a file sharing site and provide a link.

I know below is going to fail for the same reason you just mentioned but I like to incrementally improve. I noticed you chose not to change dir to /tmp but logged in as root and stayed there.....I can live with that...I modify them so you can repeat these commands and change the copy command so we can gain access to that config....we can then see it and modify it manually....so me thinks not all is doom and gloom just because we had an error on the number of screens.

all we do is define one screen in the serverlayout and so on

tell me if you have a spare usb stick or whatever and we can mod the sdb2 command, or let us know if you need help. Look at your spare stick in normal mode might help.

Code: Select all

login prompt $ root
(input pw)
X -configure
cp xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /mnt/sdb2/data
/usr/bin/startxfce4

rchase
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Re: Driver for old S3 ProSavageDDR

Post#15 by rchase » 19 Jan 2016, 23:45

I log in as root, but I did change the directory to /tmp. I can't upload xorg.conf; configuration failed and did not create one; I looked (in /tmp). I am using that installation (on my laptop) now and there is no /root/xorg.conf.new.

.xsessions-errors:

/usr/bin/startxfce4: X server already running on display :0
xfce4-session: GNOME compatibility is enabled and gnome-keyring-daemon is found on the system. Skipping gpg/ssh-agent startup.
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/ssh
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/gpg:0:1
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/ssh
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/gpg:0:1
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/ssh
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/gpg:0:1
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/ssh
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-dWC8bi/gpg:0:1

(xfsettingsd:1403): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_str_has_prefix: assertion `prefix != NULL' failed

(xfwm4:1371): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_str_has_prefix: assertion `prefix != NULL' failed

(xfsettingsd:1403): xfsettingsd-WARNING **: Failed to get the _NET_NUMBER_OF_DESKTOPS property.
libpager-Message: Setting the pager rows returned false. Maybe the setting is not applied.
Last edited by rchase on 20 Jan 2016, 00:16, edited 1 time in total.

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