Subject: Re: More than 256 colours in X?

From: "Samuel Kock" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 10:22:33 +0200

>Haven't tried it with Linux, but I can't see why it wouldn't be
>possible.

AFAIK, the X server in ARM Linux does not do more than 256 colours, but then
again, I may be wrong.

>I think one of the shortcomings of X when compared to the RO Desktop is
>that you can't switch screen modes 'on the fly'. I agree RISC OS is
>pretty unique in catering for this, but I've grown so used to it that I
>really miss it in Linux.

Er, wrong, actually :-). You can! With Slackware Linux (I do not know how in
Redhat), you just press Ctrl-Alt-+ or Ctrl-Alt-minus on the keypad, and it
changes res for you. I think the way the X server works is that is it
automagically chooses the highest amount of colours available on your
system, but I may be wrong. Anybody know better?

>I'm trying to find out too. This is actually because I've just found a
>driver for the video card in my x86 box and got XFree86 to work on that;
>however, it picks a screen mode I don't really prefer.
Did you do a XF86Config? THere it asks you a lot of questions about video
card, amount of RAM, etc. Just be sure to put your monitor refresh rates in
correctly, otherwise you may harm your monitor. You can also edit XFree86's
config file by hand <grin>.

Regards

Samuel Kock
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From: Philip Blundell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 09:51:40 +0100

>Redhat), you just press Ctrl-Alt-+ or Ctrl-Alt-minus on the keypad, and it

It's the same for any XFree86 system.

>system, but I may be wrong. Anybody know better?

It gets the colour depth from your configuration file or the "-bpp" option.  
You can't change this on the fly, only the resolution.

p.