Ancient Suse 7.3: what Xserver for Intel graphics.

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I NEED (don’t ask) to install Suse 7.3 on a recently bought system.

It has an Intel graphics controller:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2562 (rev 03)
00:02.0 Class 0300: 8086:2562 (rev 03)

Is there anybody here who is old enough to remember how I can get the Xserver to behave.

Current situation: With the XFree86 server and “driver VESA” the console messes up. I I cannot change virutal consoles or kill/restart the Xserver. As soon as I try that, the screen goes blank, and never comes to life again except for a full reboot…

Suggestions?
(“use modern a Suse” doesn’t help: Either port this one thing, or port a whole bunch of specialistic device drivers. Moreover, part of the hardware (that what hangs externally on the cards) is not available for testing. Writing kernel mode device drivers without being able to test them is out of my league. Sorry).

#2

I can’t remember

Did you try

su -
sax2 -r

#3

rewolff wrote:
> I NEED (don’t ask) to install Suse 7.3 on a recently bought system.
>
> It has an Intel graphics controller:
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device
> 2562 (rev 03)
> 00:02.0 Class 0300: 8086:2562 (rev 03)
>
> Is there anybody here who is old enough to remember how I can get the
> Xserver to behave.

There’s probably a better answer but perhaps one way is to buy a
graphics adapter that you know is supported by whatever version of X
came with 7.3

#4

On 10/02/2012 05:16 PM, rewolff wrote:
> Is there anybody here who is old enough to remember how I can get the
> Xserver to behave.

i didn’t run SuSE until 9.x, but i’ll say that if the “recently bought
system” has a graphics set which the SuSE 7.3 did not support (and how
could it–afaik Intel didn’t even make a graphic chip in 2001) then
there is no need to try to remember how to “get the Xserver to behave”
because it won’t…it can’t.

so, why not run your 7.3 without X…just run it as a non-gui box…

ok, you said “don’t ask” so i won’t: but if you must run 7.3’s X, you
are gonna have to run it on a graphics setup it likes, from the
period…(go to a junk market and pick up old Cirrus, VisionTek and etc
cards–but, be advised that they may NOT fit into the slots available in
your “recently bought system”…)

and, finally: please don’t expose that system to the internet (or anyone
internal who might have a grudge)…it is so old even a script-kiddie
younger than the code you run can krack it.

–
dd http://goo.gl/PUjnL
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat

#5

rewolff wrote:

>
> I NEED (don’t ask) to install Suse 7.3 on a recently bought system.
>

Try running the 7.3 under Virtualbox or some other virtual machine. The
video/network parts used by VB are pretty generic so that might get you by.

–
Will Honea

#6

I bet you’ll meet a lot of other hardware that’s not going to work with 7.3’s kernel. Comparison: try Win95 on a recent machine. It’s just not gonna work. And, I agree, at least go for headless, invest your time in getting the machine to work anyway.

#7

On 2012-10-02 21:12, Will Honea wrote:
> rewolff wrote:
>
>>
>> I NEED (don’t ask) to install Suse 7.3 on a recently bought system.
>>
>
> Try running the 7.3 under Virtualbox or some other virtual machine. The
> video/network parts used by VB are pretty generic so that might get you by.

I think he is using 7.3 because he needs to use some other hardware for which there is only
support on 7.3. The only solutions I can think of, is using vesa modes, if available, or using
older hardware cards. I have a computer here with 7.3 and an NVidia card, IIRC. I did use 7.1
with Intel integrated graphics time ago, but of course, older Intel graphics.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#8

Good thinking, robin, exactly. right. We have a whole bunch of drivers that were written in the 1996 era, ported to 2.4 in the 2002 timeframe, and now there is no money to upgrade everything, we just need a hardware replacement.

This is an industrial PC. There is a mostly passive backplane and a CPU card. So: "get a videocard … " doesn’t work. I’m stuck with the oldest “cpu card” that they could find. And still the IDE controller and video cards are newer than suse7.3 that the system was built on.

The machine is supposed to control some hardware. Operators need to tell the machine (i.e. not the computer!) to start up, shut down, change this parameter etc etc. That needs a screen alas…

and, finally: please don’t expose that system to the internet (or anyone
internal who might have a grudge)…it is so old even a script-kiddie
younger than the code you run can krack it.
Haha! Back in 1996 they suggested we just connect the machine (back then there was only one, now there are 5 I think) to the internet for support reasons. I made sure that didn’t happen!

On the other hand, with a proper firewall, and say only “call out” options this might have been useful. Anyway I made the disicion back then: no internet, and that’s the way it is going to stay. (Security on these machines is: modem is unplugged, when the operator needs remote assistance, the modem is plugged in, and he has to push a button to have the machine “call out”. At no point in time would you be able to “call in” onto the machine. Not even if they forget to unplug the modem after the support call has ended.).

Thanks for trying to help!
Sorry to have looked as if I was a “drive-by-poster” which is sort-of-true anyway.

I’m going to see what happens with “sax2 -r”.

#9

On 2012-10-09 14:46, rewolff wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2492704 Wrote:

> Good thinking, robin, exactly. right. We have a whole bunch of drivers
> that were written in the 1996 era, ported to 2.4 in the 2002 timeframe,
> and now there is no money to upgrade everything, we just need a hardware
> replacement.

It happens…

> This is an industrial PC. There is a mostly passive backplane and a CPU
> card. So: "get a videocard … " doesn’t work. I’m stuck with the
> oldest “cpu card” that they could find. And still the IDE controller and
> video cards are newer than suse7.3 that the system was built on.

Ah, yes, I have worked with them. Or an hybrid: an industrial “box” with a plain motherboard.
IIRC the ones I worked with had separate graphics, or at least a PCI bus in which you usually
plug things like data acquisition boards, but a plain video card is also possible.

Typically industrial PCs are not very “advanced” compared to home/office hardware, I mean, they
don’t use recent cpus and gadgets, and when they do, they are terribly expensive. You could buy
plain 8086 boards from them way into this century, for example. I would not be surprised that
you can still buy boards supported by 7.3

(I miss working with these things)

> Knurpht Wrote:
>> And, I agree, at least go for headless,
> The machine is supposed to control some hardware. Operators need to
> tell the machine (i.e. not the computer!) to start up, shut down, change
> this parameter etc etc. That needs a screen alas…

Yep. And these operators may have their hands full of grease and dirt :wink:

However, you could get an hybrid solution: the industrial PC would be text only (that should
work) and a second pc would display the graphics via xserver client/server solutions. Not
something I would like in your situation, though.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#10

“Headless” doesn’t mean you cannot visually access it. SSH is a good option.

#11

+1 to virtualization. This is one of the best examples of why to use it.

#12

On 2012-10-09 16:46, katanacb wrote:
>
> +1 to virtualization. This is one of the best examples of why to use
> it.

Read the thread carefully again and learn why this is one of the cases where virtualization can
not be used. I will not explain why because it has already been explained.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#13

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> Typically industrial PCs are not very “advanced” compared to home/office
> hardware, I mean, they don’t use recent cpus and gadgets, and when they
> do, they are terribly expensive. You could buy plain 8086 boards from them
> way into this century, for example. I would not be surprised that you can
> still buy boards supported by 7.3

LOL! I can point you to controllers using 8080 processors with 1703 eeproms

  • in nuclear plants. I still make beer money selling those old eeproms I
    bought years back and some places even pay me unreasonable amounts to get
    them programmed. A distributor sold me a crate of them for roughly one
    penny each several years ago. Here, the issue government regulators - you
    would not believe the cost to get newer parts certified!

–
Will Honea

#14

On 2012-10-09 23:40, Will Honea wrote:
> Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>> Typically industrial PCs are not very “advanced” compared to home/office
>> hardware, I mean, they don’t use recent cpus and gadgets, and when they
>> do, they are terribly expensive. You could buy plain 8086 boards from them
>> way into this century, for example. I would not be surprised that you can
>> still buy boards supported by 7.3
>
> LOL! I can point you to controllers using 8080 processors with 1703 eeproms
> - in nuclear plants. I still make beer money selling those old eeproms I
> bought years back and some places even pay me unreasonable amounts to get
> them programmed. A distributor sold me a crate of them for roughly one
> penny each several years ago. Here, the issue government regulators - you
> would not believe the cost to get newer parts certified!

One issue is certification, and another is industrial quality requirements. An industrial
quality computer, recent hardware, is very expensive, so it makes sense to use “older cpus”
instead because they are cheaper.

See
here, they start with pentium D boards…

AIMB-762
LGA775 Pentium® D/Pentium 4/Celeron® D Processor-based ATX with DDR2/PCIe/Dual LAN
Main Features
Intel® 945G chipset 800 MHz FSB
Dual channel DDR2 533/667 SDRAM up to 4 GB
Chipset integrated VGA sharing 224 MB system memory
PCIe x16 slot for VGA card
Four SATA II ports with 300 MB transfer rate and software RAID 0,1,5,10
Supports dual 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet via dedicated PCIe x1 bus
Compatible with Advantech’s 2U, 4U, 5U and 7U Chassis

The processor is “old”, but the design is not. Sata II… I wonder if the video would work
with 7.3, it is “Intel GMA 950” :-?

Another issue is that if you have to design a computerized system with a custom application, it
comes out very expensive even without certification issues, so you want to make use of the
installation for as many years as you can. It is like a car, you want it to work for ten years,
and it does so with the same software it used originally - why update? And also the same
hardware. The problem is that the computer industry runs away fast and getting parts becomes
difficult, and more expensive with time.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#15

You may be able to get by with the vesa driver

su -c 'sax2 -r -m 0=vesa'