Messages in this thread | | | From | "Joshua Buysse" <> | Subject | Re: GGI Project Unhappy On Linux | Date | Sun, 5 Apr 1998 16:07:58 -0500 |
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Marek,
Here's the point that I've been trying to get across -- you don't need to implement GDI to use one of these printers. You need to create a bitmap and send it to the printer in a specific manner. The *only* thing that needs to be reverse-engineered is the protocol for sending this bitmap to the printer. You don't need to implement GDI to do this.
The "GDI-only" video cards are the same deal. Basically, they still know how to draw a line, etc. You aren't going to send GDI function calls to the video card -- that's too much overhead. It doesn't want or need to know about the GDI hWnd, or any other things. The *driver* handles that. The only difference from today might be some accelerator functions to convert a MS DIB (device-independent bitmap) to a device-dependent bitmap and DMA it to the card, or other functions that convert Windows-style data structures for use with the card.
It's still going to have a framebuffer, and a way to access it (DirectX, anyone?). That, they won't be able to do away with. Even if they do, and have the "framebuffer" a DIB on the card (which is a very insane thought -- devices like that are usually OS-version dependent and don't last long. Example: Apple 8*24 GC video card, circa 1993. Don't work with MacOS 7.1 or later.) Also, I can't see them being cheaper. This just *adds* complexity to the card. Drivers are cheap compared to chips.
I *can* see them eliminating text mode. That sucks. But it doesn't mean that a card without a text mode can't work with Linux, or anything else. See fbcon.c.
Sorry to rant at you this much, but I'm getting tired of the flamewar too.
Josh Buysse buyssej@coffman.umn.edu
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>I see. But that makes the printer virtually unusable on most other platforms >than it was designed for? So, to use it on Linux one would have to implement >the GDI engine? >And what about video cards that implement in hardware functions traditionally >found in the software driver? They certainly give better performance but they >are tied to one particular OS interface - such cards exist, so what other OSes >trying to use the card have to do? They need to implement the interface used >on the other OS, thus effectively giving up their original solutions and >interfaces - which would not always be a gain. > >best wishes, marek >--- >Writing software is more fun than working. > > >- >To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in >the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu >
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