From owner-freebsd-multimedia  Wed Aug 12 19:12:04 1998
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Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 03:10:53 +0100
From: Roger Hardiman <roger@cs.strath.ac.uk>
Organization: Strathclyde Uni
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To: Randall Hopper <rhh@ct.picker.com>, ahasty@rah.star-gate.com,
        multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Putting the bt848 driver into the GENERIC kernel
References: <35C9DF20.462DF047@cs.strath.ac.uk> <19980812181205.E25281@ct.picker.com>
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Randall, Amancio, Multimedia's

I was wondering why we do not have the bt848 driver in the GENERIC
kernel.
Why do we have to build a new kernel before we can watch TV with FXTV?

At first I thought it was because the 864k of RAM the driver allocates.
You may not
want the Generic Kernel allocating this space.

But as FXTV supports the DGA Direct Video mode (DMA transfer from
bt848->video card directly)
there is no need for a frame buffer in all situations.
FXTV can work without it. (It runs faster in DGA mode anyway)
Video Capture, e.g. vic, frame_capture for a webcam etc, requires it.

We could have a bktr0 in the GENERIC kernel which does not allocate
memory for a
frame buffer.
FXTV users can then boot up and watch TV right away.
Video Capture users - well they currently have to build a kernel anyway.


Questions for this are...
1.How many FreeBSD users actually use the GENERIC kernel and do not
recompile a personalised kernel?
Of those using GENERIC kernel, is it really that they have no idea how
to make a kernel. Or just
no need to personalise it as it detects all their hardware.

2.Would Joe Public use his bt848 purely for FXTV (direct video mode). In
which case, getting something
in the GENERIC kernel would really help Joe Public. He can watch TV
without having to know
about kernel options and things. He would also save 864k of memory of
memory.

3.What sound card support would a Generic Kernel need. Just enough to
initialise the mixer and
volume?


Thoughts, comments, questions?
Roger

Roger Hardiman
Strathclyde Uni Telepresence Group

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