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Configuring this Video Card in Linux is tricky as this card is not fully supported by Red Hat. Therefore you will need supplementary drivers to use the card.

Installation

Configuration

You can use XConfigurator but for this card you need to use a better utility called xf86config. Start xf86config at the command prompt and enter the details of your monitor, refresh rates etc. Please note that you need to say no for Clock Chip settings (Enter key).Enter the appropriate video ram you have. Enter the other details and then save the file. You should now be back at the Command Prompt. Change to /usr/X11R6/bin directory and type 

ln - s XFCom_SiS XF86_SVGA 

Now we need to make some changes to the /etc/X11/XF86Config file : 

Scroll down to the sections till you see :

********************************** 
Screen Sections 
********************************** 
Just above this heading, you'll notice a field concerning the video RAM of your card. Uncomment this. Scroll up and add another field just below Identifier: 

ChipSet "SIS86C205"

Now scroll down till you see #The Color SVGA server. You'll see a number of fields below this.
We shall trim these to make life easier. Our area of operation consists of all the fields
between #The Color SVGA server and before #The 16 Color VGA server. You'll notice a number of subsections-for example, "Display" etc. Remove all of them
and type in the following: 

SubSection "Display"
Depth 8 
Modes "800x600"
Viewport 0 0 
EndSubsection 
EndSection 

With this, we've set up the display for 256 colors (also known as 8-bit color) in 800x600
resolution. This should work fine if you've followed the instructions properly. You can then come
back to this file and adjust the settings. A depth of 16 represents 65,000 colors, and 24
represents 16.7 million colors. 

Type startx and if all went well, you should see  your Window manager. 

Configuring with XFree86 4.0.2

Configuring this card under XFree86 4.0.2 has given me a lot of problems and I have finally got it working by using the card's Frame Buffer support.

Installation

Install and run the Xinstall.sh script and enter the details of your monitor, refresh rates etc. After that select the SIS86C215 chipset.

Configuration

Note that this won't work as the SiS 6215c is not supported by this version of XFree86 4.0.2. Enter the appropriate settings and then save the file. We now need to edit the /etd/X11/XF86Config file. Scroll down to the section named "Device" and instead of the driver "sis" replace it by "fbdev" (this is the frame buffer driver). The frame buffer driver is an unaccelerated driver. So your video card will run without any acceleration.Uncomment the amount of VideoRam (eg:1024). Save the file. Now we need to find out the modes to run with Frame Buffer support. Note that this varies from one kernel to another. On my 2.2.16-3 kernel I was able to run with 800x600x8 mode by passing the option vga=771  under LILO boot . Under my new 2.4.1 kernel I was able to run with 800x600x8 mode by passing the option vga=303. 

This is the only wokraround I found to run the SiS 6215c video card successfully. Try configuring the card and if you have any problems or better ideas mail me at linuxuser@techie.com. Happy Linuxing !
                                                                                                  Praveen Kannan
                                                                                                  (Webmaster)

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