Some Obscure Problem

[Bora Sahin]

Hello,

  I have a SM712(LynxEM4+) graphic card and an IBM 405EP/333MHz PowerPC. The silicon motion driver
  in the Xorg sources contains some int10 calls for getting/setting modes and vbeDDC calls for
  determining monitor capabilities. I examined the source code and noticed that mode setting/getting
  via int10 is redundant in fact. I also canceled vbeDDC calls because It calls int10 from out
  there. Also there is some redundant code in the driver sources for that means.(vbeDDC) 

  After I was confident with my theories, I did it and started(xinit or startx) the X-server
  successfully, otherwise it cant be possible. But some very obscure error[s] puzzled me! Characters 
  isnt read. For example, I dont notice the lowercase "a" from hostname part.(xterm) After writing
  some characters in the terminal, I noticed characters itself is in the reverse order if we get
  their center(vertical / y axis) as the base. For example, M letter is simetric according to its
  center(vertical / y axis). X-Window firstly draws the right part, then gives some space(This is
  the space between characters. Normally it must be at the end of each character!) and then draws
  the left part of it. So if a M follows it, then no problem. But if another character follows then
  a problem occurs. The first different character is broken, following that characters are normal
  until writing another character. But while the view with simetric characters is such that, the
  situation in non-simetric characters is more worse. For example, the direction of lines in "E"
  letter is in the wrong side, the direction is left instead of right. Perhaps vertical center/y
  axis is not true because the glyphs of characters is in that shape. I dont know but it resembles
  my theory. I hope I clearly visualized the problem.

  I also tried fbdev driver for my system and it worked and there is no problem except it only works
  in 640*480*8. There is some problem regarding resolution between fb driver and X. But the
  important point here is that I can read the characters.

  Firstly I suspected two things: Driver changes I did and fonts. I can switch the console and then
  switch back to X-Window without any problem. There is no info lost. Switching goes smootly. So I
  dont think it is driver related! I examined the font system a bit today but I am not sure it is 
  the cause. My last suspection is endiannes? I am stuck here. If you the guys can help, I am very
  grateful...
  
  Ps: My host system i386/Debian. I installed the prepackaged XFree86 binaries but they doesnt
  contain SM driver because of abovementioned reasons. So I cross-compiled Xorg-6.8.2 and overwrite
  the XFree86 ones. My main purpose is only for testing so I dont bother for it.

-- 
Bora SAHIN