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[Todd Denniston]

Adam Jackson wrote, On 03/27/2008 02:33 PM:
> On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 13:58 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 01:43:49PM -0400, Adam Jackson wrote:
>>> Unfortunately we pick depth before resolution, so it's a bit difficult
>>> to look ahead and know "oh, we've been asked for 800x600, we should
>>> downgrade to 16bpp".  I can probably hack something up for the chips
>>> driver, but it really is a per-driver thing.
>> Seems strange it is so. At the point we pick depth we can aspire to 800x600
>> unless already asked otherwise surely ?
> 
> I suppose I'm only saying what the driver _does_, not what it could do.
> 
> The problem is your config file looks like:
> 
> Section "Screen"
>     # stuff
>     DefaultDepth 24
>     SubSection "Display"
>         Depth 24
>         Modes "800x600"
>     EndSubsection
> EndSection
> 
> So how do you interpret that?  You've asked for 800x600x24.  Should we
> fail to launch, or give you something other than you asked for?  Both
> options kinda suck.  If you don't specify a default depth, you get
> something driver-specific, but if you do so, there's no place to get the
> Modes list from, so there's no way to ask for 800x600.
> 
> I suppose for sufficiently gimpy chips we could just write out
> DefaultDepth 16 instead.  Or I could just add Modes as a keyword to the
> Screen section and fix up pyxf86config/rhpxl/s-c-d to write that out
> instead, and then let the driver make a best effort to match the mode at
> whatever depth it can.
> 
> - ajax
> 

I know I am about stick my foot where it will get loped off, but :)


why not have (in the install config)
Section "Screen"
     # stuff
     DefaultDepth 24
     SubSection "Display"
         Depth 24
         Modes "800x600"
     EndSubsection
     SubSection "Display"
         Depth 16
         Modes "800x600"
     EndSubsection
     SubSection "Display"
         Depth 15
         Modes "800x600"
     EndSubsection
     SubSection "Display"
         Depth 8
         Modes "800x600"
     EndSubsection
EndSection

IIRC (very possibly wrong) If X can't provide "800x600" in 24 it falls back to 
each of the others until it works. right???

I mean for installs it is NOT important that the fedora/RH logo to have just 
THAT smooth gradient of color change, it IS however VERY important that the 
user can see and press all the buttons if you are in graphical mode.

The only trouble I see with that idea... some applications don't code for the 
alternative of not having "TrueColor" (or was it "PseudoColor" or 
"DirectColor")... anyway if you were expecting to use one of those and only 
had the other, the app I was dealing with would fall apart (back in the RH6 
days) when you wanted to muck about with the colormap.

-- 
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter