Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Thu, 27 Sep 2001 10:56:07 -0700 (PDT) | From | James Simmons <> | Subject | Re: Why is Device3Dfx driver (voodoo1/2) not in the kernel? |
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> Mode changing - Now there I can get into an argument. I > still (after all these years) feel that the Kernel is the best > place to put video mode control. That way 'killall -9 X' isn't > nearly as nasty... The kernel could at least get you back to > a text console.
Can we say framebuffer devices. As graphics cards are placed into more and more different types of systems we need to have a way to make these cards workable on different platforms. This requires us to write drivers that can initialize a mode without firmware. I have reworked the console layer to deal with this and with allowing different modes on different VCs. The current system allows it too but it is more of a later add on hack. I have a much cleaner implementation which does what you ask of the above. > And now that XFree86 4 has a vm86 system to 'run the > Video BIOS' for certain cards, it shouldn't be to hard to > emulate the old OS/2 system - in a vm86 session, use the BIOS > to switch to all the supported modes, and record (via vm86 > io traps) everything the BIOS does. Then, in the driver, > just 'play back' the scripts... Worked beatifully for OS/2 > back in the day for 2D framebuffers...
Really. I have my own personal compain to make all the graphics drivers firmware independent. I even like to see the VGA console driver also firmware independent.
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