How to use 3.1 XFree86 driver for S3Vision864

I'm brand new to BSDs.

I have an IBM 486-DX4-100 with 32 MB ram, with on-board
S3Vision864
video.  It used to run Debian Sarge (with Woody's 3.1
XFree86 Driver)
since it doesn't run well at all with vesa.  When I tried
upgrading
Sarge to Etch it hosed libc6.

So I figured I'd try the BSDs.

I've successfully installed and run from the console both
NetBSD and
OpenBSD.  However, the focus on OBSD seems to be on routers,
firewalls
and other specialty infrastructure boxes or newer hardware. 
I need
something that is happy to run on my old box in both console
and X and
stay up-to-date re security.  For this reason, NetBSD may be
the best
fit from a philisophical perspective.

However, to get a comfortable X running, I either need the
recent X to
support my old S3Vision864 or I need a 3.? driver.  If I
stick with a
3.? driver, am I opening up to security issues at all?

What would you suggest?

Thanks,

Doug.

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> However, to get a comfortable X running, I either need
the recent X to
> support my old S3Vision864 or I need a 3.? driver.  If
I stick with a
> 3.? driver, am I opening up to security issues at all?

I think that the Vision 864 is supported by the
"s3" driver. But that is 
still old. Sorry I don't answer your question in the Subject
line.

You probably want to use pkgsrc and the modular-xorg
packages instead. The 
driver is pkgsrc/x11/xf86-video-s3. I don't know if binary
packages are 
available for that though.

Welcome to NetBSD!

  Jeremy C. Reed

On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 11:07:32AM -0500, Jeremy C. Reed
wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> 
> > However, to get a comfortable X running, I either
need the recent X to
> > support my old S3Vision864 or I need a 3.? driver.
 If I stick with a
> > 3.? driver, am I opening up to security issues at
all?
> 
> I think that the Vision 864 is supported by the
"s3" driver. But that is 
> still old. Sorry I don't answer your question in the
Subject line.
> 
> You probably want to use pkgsrc and the modular-xorg
packages instead. The 
> driver is pkgsrc/x11/xf86-video-s3. I don't know if
binary packages are 
> available for that though.
> 

I found in debian that an S3 after 3.* doesn't include
support for the
S3_sdac (clock chip and ramdac) and without it the image is
terrible; so
I really need to use a 3.* xserver.

Doug.

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> I found in debian that an S3 after 3.* doesn't include
support for the
> S3_sdac (clock chip and ramdac) and without it the
image is terrible; so
> I really need to use a 3.* xserver.

You may want to report this problem to the X.org list or via
a bug at 
bugzilla.freedesktop.org.

Can anyone else here help him with using this older
xserver?

If not, ask on the tech-x11netbsd list.

  Jeremy C. Reed

On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 06:49:17PM -0500, Jeremy C. Reed
wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> 
> > I found in debian that an S3 after 3.* doesn't
include support for the
> > S3_sdac (clock chip and ramdac) and without it the
image is terrible; so
> > I really need to use a 3.* xserver.
> 
> You may want to report this problem to the X.org list
or via a bug at 
> bugzilla.freedesktop.org.
> 

Thanks.

I may try again with Xorg, get some proper error messages so
that if it
IS a bug (and not just them letting go of ancient hardware),
there will
be something to go on.

Doug.