Linux XFree-to-Xinside mini-HOWTO

1. Introduction

During the spring of 1996 I've seen a lot of posts in comp.os.linux.x asking how to convert video modes between XFree86 and one of its commercial alternatives: XInside ( now named XiGraphics, note anyway that in this document I'll use the old product name, since I will mainly refer to that version )

I had evaluated before the product and had this evaluation version still floating on my hard disk: since I like problem solving, I've decided to give it a try and, after a couple of hours of fiddling and calculating, I came up with a supposedly informative article that was promptly posted.

The discussions about how to convert suddendly vanished and I received 1 (one) mail thanking me for the article so, since maybe somebody else could need this information in the future, I decided to transform that post in the mini-HOWTO you are reading.

Let me state something first: I do NOT work for XInside and I only had access to the evaluation 1.2 version for Linux. I know that nowadays ( May 97 ) AccelX has reached revision 3.1, but I do think that the information included in this document, if not verbatim, is still applicable.

Due to the fact that this HOWTO has been written with the help of a pretty old Xinside version, it may well happen that some of the information contained here is not completely accurate: as you will read later, thanks to the birth of XFree 3.2, I haven't bought this commercial server, so if you have, and if you notice any incorrect information here please take the time to email me.

Notice anyway that fiddling with monitor timings can be hazardous and, for this reason, I absolutely make no guarantees. If it works for you , fine, if you blow up your computer I shall not be held responsible for it.

As you may have noticed from may name, I'm not a native speaker of English so you will probably find some errors here and there, I apologize for them and I ask you to please avoid flooding my mailbox with language-related flames. Thanks !