From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 28 12:18:51 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 49FB716A50D for ; Wed, 28 Jun 2006 12:18:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) Received: from canning.wemm.org (canning.wemm.org [192.203.228.65]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C50C1453AC for ; Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:42:51 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) Received: from fw.wemm.org (canning.wemm.org [192.203.228.65]) by canning.wemm.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8FA6F2A8DF for ; Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:42:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) Received: from overcee.wemm.org (overcee.wemm.org [10.0.0.3]) by fw.wemm.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F882E2B3 for ; Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:42:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) Received: from overcee.wemm.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by overcee.wemm.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k5RJgoMX002248; Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:42:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by overcee.wemm.org (8.13.4/8.13.1/Submit) id k5RJgoJO002247; Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:42:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) X-Authentication-Warning: overcee.wemm.org: peter set sender to peter@wemm.org using -f From: Peter Wemm To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:42:49 -0700 User-Agent: KMail/1.8.1 References: <463aea570606240729u6b696c05vc1de0b1e03afae0f@mail.gmail.com> <20060624222706.GE747@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20060624222706.GE747@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200606271242.50222.peter@wemm.org> Cc: Gobbledegeek Subject: Re: console in 1024x768 mode? X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 12:18:51 -0000 On Saturday 24 June 2006 03:27 pm, Peter Jeremy wrote: > On Sat, 2006-Jun-24 19:59:39 +0530, Gobbledegeek wrote: > >I tried putting "options VESA" in kernel but buildkernel said > >unsupported option. > > VESA relies on the kernel being able to call BIOS functions. The > bios is i386 so this isn't possible in native amd64. > > Running non-standard console resolution means something like KGI. > This was being worked on some years ago but seems to have died. The other option, which many amd64 linux's do, is to have the loader set up the VESA modes and pass the information through to the console driver. We could do that too because our loader runs in 32 bit mode. The other possibility is to do what the X servers do. They have a simple emulator for 8088 real mode instructions (see their "int10" module). They execute the bios code interpretively to do things like mode changes etc. We could do that too. It shouldn't be hard to write something like a userland tool that can change the mode and tell the kernel what the new display settings are. It could even be done as a kernel module, but I'm not sure I'd want a software vm86 emulator in the default kernel as it tends to be a bit big. Volunteers, anyone? -- Peter Wemm - peter@wemm.org; peter@FreeBSD.org; peter@yahoo-inc.com "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5