[ale] REsolved: SuSE-9.3/Gateway Redux: SuSE, kde, and shallow color (8 bpp)

[Mills, John M.]

ALErs -

First, thanks to all for help configuring my old Gateway2K ('G6-233')
for SuSE-9.3 Linux. Though far from a SuSE-j*ck, I learned a certain
amount.

Among the things learned is: that orphan Chromatics 'mpact2' video chip
on the motherboard can be a _real_ burr under the saddle! (Try
Google-ing for a solution! Let me know if your find one!!) Ultimately I
got my hands around its throat, thusly:

1. Updated the motherboard BIOS, c/o Gateway's web site and
serial-number lookup for the system.

2. Updated the Win98 video driver, also c/o Gateway's web site: not a
Linux requirement, but important to me because (1) this is a dual
Win98/Linux setup and even the Win98 display was total dreck without the
update, and (2) it let me check out available display modes without
Sax2's "the sky is falling" chatter. (It actually is a quite nice Win98
box, if that's not oxymoronic!)

3. In Sax2, I went from "VESA framebuffer" to "VESA BIOS framebuffer",
and (as Robert Frost said) "... this has made all the difference." I can
now choose reasonable color and resolution settings and actually get
them!

Thanks again.

Naturally I am still not satisfied.

I think my two quibbles may come from SuSE's configuration for a
"workstation" rather than "laptop" setup; at any rate, I want to resolve
them:

Q1. How might I suppress the 'console log' display window on an ordinary
user's login? This probably comes from some 'xsession' descriptor, but I
haven't been able to find where. Redirecting it to a log file (and
occasionally truncating its front end) might be the cleanest solution.

Q2. I finally gave up and added scripts using 'sudo' and added icons for
my 'Shutdown' and 'Reboot' to my user's 'Start' menu, but I need to
either suppress their password prompts or put up a 'splash' for the user
to enter passwords. Should I have found a switch for this when I added
the menu icons? Any other suggestions?

Thanks, and best wishes for 2006: much "free as in 'free speech'", and
even some "free as in 'free beer'"!

Regards,
 - Mills