[SPARCbook] Re: P9000 Linux Framebuffer "kind of" working

[Michael Schwarz]

On Tuesday 03 December 2002 12:58 pm, Bob Bramwell wrote:
> Congratulations!  It sounds like several of us out here would be most
> interested in what you accomplish.  Having a good working Linux as an
> alternative to an old version of Solaris would be a BIG plus.
>
> Hang in there.

The encouragement is great.  Specs on the P9000 would be better ;-).

Seriously, if anyone on this list knows someone who knows the Wietek P9000 or 
knows some engineers at Tadpole from "back in the day," I'd love to hear from 
you.

If you have a Sparcbook 3GX, you should already be able to run Linux.  You 
might have to custom compile your kernel to get it working, but it should be 
quite do-able.  I'm willing to help anyone out with that.  If you have the 
older Sparcbook 3 or 3MX (I think it was MX), then you can install linux, but 
you will be without the GUI.

This is not to say you can't have a GUI.  You have two options.  Both require 
another workstation.  The first option is to use any other X system, run your 
apps on the Sparcbook with DISPLAY pointing at the other X system 
(traditional network X-windows).  The other is to run VNCserver on the 
Sparcbook and run a VNC viewer on any platform that supports the client 
(including M$-Windows and even PalmOS -- Yes, I've used PalmVNC to look at my 
Sparcbook; I'm that geeky.  Pretty useless, though.  You have to scroll too 
much...).

I'll post to this list with news if I make progress on this.  I will shortly 
post the diffs for what I've got so far (faster text mode), but this will be 
strictly "use at your own risk."

-- 
Michael Schwarz
http://www.multitool.net
mschwarz at multitool.net