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    #1

    Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

    I installed Kubuntu 10.04 Alternate on some old hardware today. It has a 1GHz P3, 512Mb RAM, 40GB HDD and SiS 630 integrated graphics.

    When it boots in the GUI, I only get a horizontally compressed images on the left of the screen. Adding a configuration file (10-monitor.conf) in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d doesn't help.

    Viewing dmesg and I see:

    Code:
    sisfb: Video ROM not found
sisfb: Fatal error: Unable to reserve 16MB framebuffer memory
sisfb: Is there another framebuffer active?
    Well, yes. Because a few lines above that, I see vesafb is being loaded.

    I think vesafb is causing the display problem so my question is: is there a way to remove vesafb without having to recompile?
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    #2
    Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

    See the post [SOLVED] Graphics driver SiS 630 over on Ubuntuforums.
    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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      #3
      Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

      Yes, I had seen that post already and tried almost everything mentioned. The only thing I hadn't tried was using the vesa driver instead of the SiS driver. That worked, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing out on hardware acceleration now since everything is *incredibly* slow. So slow it's unusable actually.

      I have the exact same machine (althoughwith less memory) running Kubuntu 6.06.1 perfectly and it's using the SiS driver. So if at all possible, I want to run Kubuntu 10.04 on the Sis driver as well.
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        #4
        Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

        In 10.04, is there a System > Additional Drivers utility? If there is, have you run it to see if it identifies a proprietary video driver?
        Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
        "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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          #5
          Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

          It says "No proprietary drivers are in use on this system".

          The SiS driver is available but currently not used since if I replace the vesa driver with the sis driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf I get the display problems mentioned. And I think it's because X can't load sisfb (because it's already using vesafb).
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            #6
            Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

            Originally posted by Zippy1970
            Adding a configuration file (10-monitor.conf) in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d doesn't help.
            Undo that so you are back to where you were before the modification. Then check in the package manager for the xserver-xorg-video-sis package. If it isn't installed, install it.
            Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
            "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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              #7
              Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

              Originally posted by Snowhog
              \

              Then check in the package manager for the xserver-xorg-video-sis package. If it isn't installed, install it.
              Had tried that already, it said it was already installed.
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                #8
                Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                I got somewhat further. My hardware is an all-in-one-PC, sorta like a laptop without the keyboard. It has a built-in monitor.

                It also has an extra VGA output to hook up a second monitor. It will simply clone the output of the built-in monitor to the external monitor. When I hookup another monitor, the image on the external monitor is just fine. So apparently it's driving the built-in monitor incorrectly.

                Like I said, I have two of these machines. The other is running Kubuntu 6.06 without problems. If I compare /var/log/Xorg.0.log of both machines, I see only two differences:

                1: On the non-working machine, it says something like "Could not find/read video bios" (while on the working machine it says it found a SiS video Bios) and
                2: On the non-working machine, it sets DPI to 96x96 (and on the working machine it sets it to 75x75)

                I've tried changing DPI in xorg.conf, but it seems to ignore that option.
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                  #9
                  Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                  I thought I'd give PCLinuxOS a try today. Exact same problem. Guess this is a problem will all Debian based distributions?

                  Next I'm going to try OpenSUSE. Will report back.
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                    #10
                    Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                    Originally posted by Zippy1970
                    It has a 1GHz P3, 512Mb RAM, 40GB HDD and SiS 630 integrated graphics.
                    For every generation of hardware technology, there seems to be a "sweet spot" in the relevant software that drives it. Kubuntu 6.06 sounds like a reasonable operating system -- perhaps near the right end of the "sweet spot" -- for P3 and 512MB memory system. You can't expect success from a current (2011/2012) operating system on that 1998 technology -- the new kernels are designed to use hardware from the mid-2000s. Just like Win 95 won't run well on an Intel 486 33MHz platform.

                    Sorry to be a negaholic about it. Take a look at slax -- last time I played with it it seems very happy on 2000-vintage hardware. Just don't look for GLX and compiz cubes.
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                      #11
                      Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                      Actually, I want to turn these machines into kiosk systems, running nothing but a browser (in kiosk mode).

                      I've tried several small distributions now like Vector Linux, WattOS and Slitaz and they seem pretty snappy on these machines except for the graphics. It looks like graphics aren't (2D) accelerated, just like when you are running the default VGA drivers on a Windows system.

                      360p YouTube videos run at about 0.5fps, that's just too slow for a system like this. I've seen several claims on the net now that people with comparable hardware (1GHz P3, 512Mb RAM, SiS 630) can watch 360p YouTube videos without a problem.

                      Also, all distros I tried suffer from the same thing - when I use the SiS drivers, I only see a compressed desktop on the left side of the screen. If I switch to Vesa, all is well.

                      Oh, and I don't notice a speed difference between the SiS driver and the Vesa driver.

                      So I really hope I can get this problem solved.
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                        #12
                        Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                        Originally posted by Zippy1970
                        I have the exact same machine (althoughwith less memory) running Kubuntu 6.06.1 perfectly and it's using the SiS driver. So if at all possible, I want to run Kubuntu 10.04 on the Sis driver as well.
                        Hi...

                        Would installing another copy of 6.06 on the system in question solve the problem? I just don't think you're going to have much success considering the overall lack of support for SiS chipsets.

                        It's too bad your chipset wasn't a 671 as this page might have offered a solution.

                        Regards...
                        Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loves and cares about you most of all! http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/
                        How do I know this personally? Please read here: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...hn-8-12-36442/
                        PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST! You don't have to end up here: https://soulchoiceministries.org/pod...i-see-in-hell/
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                          #13
                          Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                          Originally posted by ardvark71

                          Would installing another copy of 6.06 on the system in question solve the problem? I just don't think you're going to have much success considering the overall lack of support for SiS chipsets.
                          Unfortunately, 6.06 doesn't support modern browsers very well. I was planning on using Opera in kioskmode.

                          Besides that, since 6.06 is no longer supported, trying to install anything on it is a challenge and means having to compile everything myself.
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                            #14
                            Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                            Originally posted by Zippy1970
                            Unfortunately, 6.06 doesn't support modern browsers very well. I was planning on using Opera in kioskmode.

                            Besides that, since 6.06 is no longer supported, trying to install anything on it is a challenge and means having to compile everything myself.
                            Hi....

                            Yeah, you're probably looking at being able to install only version 9, possibly 10, of Opera. However, if you want to give it a shot, here is their page for downloading older releases. I'm not sure how easy it would be to get Flash and the other web enhancements working though, in terms of compatibility and having to compile.

                            Others might disagree, but in this case, I think you would have better success buying a retail copy of Windows XP (or two, if you wanted to also replace Kubuntu on the working system) off of ebay and installing that instead. It's still widely supported and I think your system could run it fairly well as long as you watched very carefully what was running in memory and kept things light.

                            Regards...
                            Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loves and cares about you most of all! http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/
                            How do I know this personally? Please read here: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...hn-8-12-36442/
                            PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST! You don't have to end up here: https://soulchoiceministries.org/pod...i-see-in-hell/
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                              #15
                              Re: Trying to get SiS 630 (VGA card) working

                              In all honesty, I've been thinking about installing XP since I know that will run pretty well on it (I actually installed XP on an old laptop with a 233MHz Pentium and 128Mb memory and it ran suprisingly well). But I would really like to run some version of Linux on it.

                              I can remember the days when a computer was to old to decently run Windows on it and I would install Linux and the machine would suddenly fly. I guess those days are over. I must admit it's been a while since I last installed a desktop version of Linux but so far I've been utterly disappointed that even the most simple distros (like Slitaz, Vector and WattOS) don't run anywhere near as well as XP does on these old machines. I wonder what has happened that made Linux loose its edge...
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