The XF86_Mono server supports the following popular SuperVGA chipsets in monochrome mode:

ATI:

18800, 18800-1, 28800-2, 28800-4, 28800-5, 28800-6, 68800-3, 68800-6, 68800AX, 68800LX, 88800GX-C, 88800GX-D, 88800GX-E, 88800GX-F, 88800CX, 264CT, 264ET, 264VT, 264GT (a.k.a. 3D Rage), 264VT-B, 264VT3, 264VT4, 264GT-B (a.k.a. 3D Rage II), 264GT-IIc, 264GT3 (a.k.a. 3D Rage Pro), 264LT, 264LT-Pro

Tseng:

ET3000, ET4000, ET4000/W32

Western Digital:

PVGA1, WD90C00, WD90C10, WD90C11, WD90C30, WD90C31, WD90C33

Genoa:

GVGA

Trident:

TVGA8800CS, TVGA8900B, TVGA8900C, TVGA8900CL, TVGA9000

NCR:

77C22, 77C22E

Compaq:

AVGA

Oak:

OTI067, OTI077, OTI087

Cirrus:

CLGD5420, CLGD5422, CLGD5424, CLGD5426, CLGD5428, CLGD5429, CLGD5430, CLGD5434, CLGD5436, CLGD6205, CLGD6215, CLGD6225, CLGD6235, CL6410, CL6412, CL6420, CL6440

The XF86_Mono server supports the following monochrome cards and resolutions:

Sigma:

L-View, LaserView PLUS (in 1bpp mode): 1664x1280

Hyundai:

HGC-1280: 1280[1472]x1024

Apollo:

Monochrome card (with ID 9) from Apollo workstations: 1280x1024

Hercules and compatibles cards: 720x348

Additionally it supports generic VGA cards with a maximum virtual resolution of (approximately) 800x650.

On supported SVGA chipsets, XF86_Mono will use up to 1/4 of display memory, which yields a maximum virtual resolution of (approximately) 1664x1260 with 1MB of display memory. XF86_Mono does not support the accelerated functions of the supported chipsets.

The Driver entry in Screen section of the XF86Config file should be set to vga2 for VGA and SVGA boards, and mono for non-vga mono boards. If Screen sections are present for both of these, the server will start in a dual-headed configuration.

Entries for the Device section in the XF86Config file include:

chipset name

specifies a chipset so the correct driver can be used. Possible chipsets are:

VGA2:

ATI:

ati (see README.ati for other recognized names)

Tseng:

et3000, et4000, et4000w32, et4000w32i, et4000w32p

Western Digital:

pvga1, wd90c00, wd90c10, wd90c30, wd90c31, wd90c33

Genoa:

gvga

Trident:

tvga8800cs, tvga8900b, tvga8900c, tvga8900cl, tvga9000

NCR:

ncr77c22, ncr77c22e

Compaq:

cpq_avga

OAK:

oti067, oti077, oti087

Cirrus:

clgd5420, clgd5422, clgd5424, clgd5426, clgd5428, clgd5429, clgd5430, clgd5434, clgd5436, clgd6205, clgd6215, clgd6225, clgd6235, cl6410, cl6412, cl6420, cl6440

Generic VGA:

generic

MONO:

Hyundai:

hgc1280

Sigma:

sigmalview

Apollo:

apollo9

Hercules:

hercules

MemBase memaddress

specifies the base address of the video memory. This option is only used for the Sigma LaserView cards. Valid addresses for these cards are 0xA0000, 0xB0000, 0xC0000, 0xD0000, 0xE0000. The default is 0xE0000.

Black red green blue

sets the ``black'' colour to the rgb values specified. These values must be given as integers in the range 0-63. The default is 0 0 0. This option is only valid for the vga2 screen type.

White red green blue

sets the ``white'' colour to the rgb values specified. These values must be given as integers in the range 0-63. The default is 63 63 63. This option is only valid for the vga2 screen type.

Option optionstring

allows the user to select certain options provided by the drivers. Currently the following strings are recognized:

legend - for Sigma Legend ET4000-based boards. This option enables a special clock-selection algorithm used on Legend boards, and MUST be specified for these boards to function correctly.

swap_hibit - for Western Digital/PVGA1 chipsets. Some Western Digital based boards require the high-order clock-select lead to be inverted. It is not possible for the server to determine this information at run-time. If the 9th clock in the list of clocks detected by the server is less than 30Mhz, this option likely needs to be set.

hibit_low, hibit_high - for Tseng ET4000 chipsets. With some ET4000 cards, the server has difficulty getting the state of the high-order clocks select bit right when started from a high-resolution text mode. These options allow the correct initial state of that bit to be specified. To find out what the correct initial state is, start the server from an 80x25 text mode. This option is only needed if the clocks reported by the server when started from a high-resolution text mode differ from those reported when it is started from an 80x25 text mode.

8clocks - for the PVGA1 chipset the default is 4 clocks. Some cards with this chipset may support 8 clocks. Specifying this option will allow the driver to detect and use the extra clocks.

16clocks - for Trident TVGA8900B and 8900C chipsets. Some newer boards using 8900B and 8900C chipsets actually support 16 clocks rather than the standard 8 clocks. Such boards will have a "TCK9002" or "TCK9004" chip on them. Specifying this option will allow the driver to detect and use the extra 8 clocks.

power_saver - This option enables the server to use the power saving features of VESA DPMS compatible monitors. The suspend level is currently not supported. Refer to the XF86Config(4/5) manual page for details of how to set the timeouts for the different levels of operation. This option is experimental.

secondary - for the hgc1280 and apollo9 chipsets. This option allows to use these cards jumpered to the secondary I/O / memory address. These addresses are:

hgc1280:

I/O 0x3B0-0x3BF, mem 0xB0000-0xBFFFF (prim.) I/O 0x390-0x39F, mem 0xC8000-0xCFFFF (sec.)

apollo9:

I/O 0x3B0-0x3BF, mem 0xFA0000-0xFDFFFF (prim.) I/O 0x3D0-0x3DF, mem 0xA0000-0xDFFFF (sec.)

XFree86 can detect the HGC-1280 on both primary and secondary address; for the apollo card the primary address is used by default.

Note that XFree86 has some internal capabilities to determine what hardware it is running on. Thus normally the keywords chipset, clocks, and videoram don't have to be specified. But there may be occasions when this autodetection mechanism fails, (for example, too high of load on the machine when you start the server). For cases like this, one should first run XF86_Mono on an unloaded machine, look at the results of the autodetection (that are printed out during server startup) and then explicitly specify these parameters in the configuration file. It is recommended that all parameters, especially Clock values, be specified in the XF86Config file.

<XRoot>/bin/XF86_Mono

The monochrome X server for VGA, SVGA and other monochrome cards

/etc/XF86Config

Server configuration file

<XRoot>/lib/X11/XF86Config

Server configuration file

Note: <XRoot> refers to the root of the X11 install tree.