Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 08:38:46 +0100 (MET) From: Søren Schmidt <sos@FreeBSD.ORG> To: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith) Cc: doconnor@cain.gsoft.com.au, mike@smith.net.au, doconnor@gsoft.com.au, abial@nask.pl, sos@FreeBSD.ORG, jlemon@americantv.com, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BIOS calls Message-ID: <199803240738.IAA02215@sos.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: <199803240532.VAA15384@dingo.cdrom.com> from Mike Smith at "Mar 23, 98 09:32:46 pm"
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In reply to Mike Smith who wrote:
> > > Just bolt it into syscons instead of the current mode changing. Much
> > > more orthogonal. But one thing at a time - this code needs testing and
> > > cleaning. Start there.
> > Hmm.. wouldn't this end up kind of fat? If you make it a seperate LKM, then
> > you can recompile it with different code for different cards.. Of course you
> > could make syscons an LKM, and do the same thing, but I've never tried to get
> > _that_ working...
>
> Uh, the whole point is that you use the VESA BIOS, so there's nothing
> to "get fat". It's all on the card already.
Exactly, I'm working on putting support for it into syscons, so just
stay calm, we will have that functionality...
>
> > > > Gee.. Lets just port the GGI API.. They are working on an X server which us
> > > > GGI.. Mmm, no more unreadable kernel messages when your X server crashes..
> > > *Yawn* The GGI stuff hasn't exactly impressed anyone with the speed
> > > with which it (hasn't) improved recently. I can't see it congealing
> > > into anything really useful before GLiDE completely obsoletes it. 8)
> > Hmm.. well I can't say I ever looked at its speed :)
> > But it did have several advantages in my mind in that it was in the kernel so
> > it fixes the annoying "Oh dear my X server just died" problems (mostly), and
>
> That's what calling the VESA BIOS gets us. Without having to have a
> single line of hardware-specific code in the kernel, we can call the
> card's BIOS which knows all about the hardware.
I have had contacts from the GGI group lately, but to be honest I dont
se how they can succed, progress on the hardware level is much too
fast to have a small group of coders catch up with drivers, heck
ask the Xfree folks on that one if in doubt.
When we have prober & stable support of this, I'm sure we will have
a X server that can use it, its just a matter of pulling most of
the servers guts out (ie all the cardspecific code)...
Accelerated cards are a matter of concern here ;)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Søren Schmidt (sos@FreeBSD.org) FreeBSD Core Team
Even more code to hack -- will it ever end
..
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