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.\" $XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/kdrive/vesa/Xvesa.man,v 1.2 2000/09/03 05:11:22 keithp Exp $
.TH Xvesa 1
.SH NAME
Xvesa \- VESA VBE tiny X server
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B Xvesa
.RI [ :display ]
.RI [ option ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B Xvesa
is a generic X server for Linux on the x86 platform.
.B Xvesa
doesn't know about any particular hardware, and sets the video mode by
running the video BIOS in VM86 mode.
.B Xvesa
therefore runs untrusted code with full priviledges, and is one of the
most insecure X servers available.
.B Xvesa
uses both standard VGA BIOS modes and any modes advertised by a VESA 2.0
BIOS if available.
.B Run at your own risk.
.SH OPTIONS
In addition to the normal tiny-X server's options (to be described in
a separate man page),
.B Xvesa
accepts the following command line switches:
.TP 8
.B -mode \fIn\fB
specifies the VESA video mode to use. If mode
.I n
is not supported by your BIOS and hardware,
.B Xvesa
will fail, hang your system, or make your monitor explode; you are on
your own. This option overrides any
.B -screen
options.
.TP 8
.B -listmodes
tells the server to list all supported video modes. If
.B -force
was specified before
.BR -listmodes ,
lists all the modes that your BIOS claims to support, even those that
the
.B Xvesa
server won't be able to use.
.TP 8
.B -force
disables some sanity checks and use the specified mode even if the
BIOS claims not to support it.
.TP 8
.B -shadow
use a shadow framebuffer even if it is not strictly necessary. This
may dramatically improve performance on some machines.
.TP 8
.B -nolinear
don't use a linear framebuffer even if one is available. You don't
want to use this option.
.TP 8
.B -swaprgb
pass RGB values in the order that works on broken BIOSes. Use this if
the colours are wrong in PseudoColor modes.
.TP 8
.B -verbose
emit diagnostic messages during BIOS initialization and teardown.
.SH KEYBOARD
Xvesa handles the keyboard in the same manner as the
.B Xfbdev
Linux X server. See Xfbdev(1) (not yet written) for more information.
.SH BUGS
.B Xvesa
opens all IO ports and runs your VESA BIOS, which may safely be
assumed to be buggy. Allowing your users to run
.B Xvesa
is a major security hole. Allowing yourself to run
.B Xvesa
is probably a mistake.
.B Xvesa
records the current BIOS mode when it starts and restores that mode on
termination; if the video card has been reprogrammed by another application,
the display will almost certainly be trashed. The alternative of saving and
restoring the complete video card state has proven unreliable on most video
cards.
.SH SEE ALSO
X(1), Xserver(1), xdm(1), xinit(1), Xfbdev(1).
.SH AUTHORS
The tiny-X server was written by Keith Packard, and the VESA driver
was added by Juliusz Chroboczek who didn't realise what he was doing
until it was too late. Tiny-X uses code from XFree86, which in turn
is based on the Sample Implementation. Keith Packard then added support for
standard VGA BIOS modes and is especially proud of 320x200 16 color mode.
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