Linux on the Targa Visionary 1000
 

Linux on the Targa Visionary 1000

This manual is based on Debian Potato/Woody. The installation with other distributions should be similar. However, You should always run the latest version of Your distribution or have access to broadband internet. This is no manual for Linux newbies, take a look at the documentation of your distribution. If you have access to another PC via network activate the telnet/ssh deamon. If the configuration of the XServer is wrong this will be very helpful:o)

last update: 29.01.2004 (SmartLink FTP)

1. Specifications:

2. Graphics:

You need XFree86 4.2 and kernel >2.4.15, otherwise please read the old description.

Kernel: At "Console drivers" -> "Frambuffer support" activate the framebuffer support. Next check "SIS acceleration" -> "SIS 630/540/730 support". Check nothing else. At last activate "Character devices" "Direct Rendering Manager" and select the SIS driver as module.
If you have problems when switching between console and XFree, disable the local APIC at "Processor type and features".

Now install the new framebuffer driver from http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsis630.shtml and recompile the kernel.

XFree 4.2: The official driver works but at http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsis630.shtml is a newer version.

Config-files: In /etc/modules add "sis" and in /etc/lilo.conf add "append="video=sisfb:mode:1024x768x16"".

After a reboot TuxRacer should run fine. If everything is right "glxgears" will report more than 300 fps.

3. Soundcard:

Activation of the soundcard makes no problems. It is at "Sound" -> "Trident 4DWave DX/NX, SiS 7018 or Ali 5451 PCI Audio Core" in the kernel configuration.

4. Network:

No problem, too. In the kernel configuration under "Network Device Support" -> "Ethernet 10 or 100Mbit" activate the point "EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllers". Then "SiS 900/7016 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter support" and that is finished.

5. Modem:

It is an AMR-modem from SmartLink. You can get the driver from their FTP-server: ftp://ftp.smlink.com. The last location was /linux.

If you use Debian do not forget to save the changes in modules.conf to another file in /etc/modutils/.

6. DVD:

You should activate DMA- and DRI-support in the kernel. I use XINE to play my DVDs.

7. WWW-Key:

The keycode of the WWW-key is Ctrl+F12. You can verify this using the program "showkey". If you use KDE it is easy to give that key a senseful function. First change or delete the old function (switching to screen 12) in KontrolCenter. Now just start KMenuEdit and use the keycode for your favorite program.

8. Encryption:

Notebooks are famous to steal, so encrypt the harddrive to protect at least your data if not the hardware. I use BestCrypt. It is quiete simple to encrypt a whole partition with this program:

bctool new /dev/hda2 -a TwoFish

bctool format -t reiserfs /dev/hda2 (ReiserFs has to be supported by the kernel, otherwise ext2)

Now mount it with "bctool mount /dev/hda2 /secure". "bctool umount /secure" unmounts the secure partition.

Of course, you can create a container for the data but at this time BestCrypt only supports up to 2 GB.