From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 10 10:35:57 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 1B04516A405 for ; Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:35:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrew@areilly.bpc-users.org) Received: from omta04ps.mx.bigpond.com (omta04ps.mx.bigpond.com [144.140.83.156]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6EB1443D46 for ; Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:35:55 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from andrew@areilly.bpc-users.org) Received: from areilly.bpc-users.org ([141.168.4.160]) by omta04ps.mx.bigpond.com with ESMTP id <20060410103554.VUUK17345.omta04ps.mx.bigpond.com@areilly.bpc-users.org> for ; Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:35:54 +0000 Received: (qmail 19791 invoked by uid 501); 10 Apr 2006 10:37:52 -0000 Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 20:37:52 +1000 From: Andrew Reilly To: Oliver Fromme Message-ID: <20060410103752.GA19743@gurney.reilly.home> References: <44391881.3090907@thebeastie.org> <200604091705.k39H5Fi0049956@lurza.secnetix.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200604091705.k39H5Fi0049956@lurza.secnetix.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: bug-followup@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG, hhc@tut.by Subject: Re: amd64/94896: Where support VESA Modes for AMD64 kernel ? 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: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:35:57 -0000 On Sun, Apr 09, 2006 at 07:05:14PM +0200, Oliver Fromme wrote: > I don't know what kind of "hi-res console mode" you have > seen on Gentoo, and I don't know what Gentoo might be doing > to enable such a thing. Maybe they have implemented direct > support for certain graphics hardware (like KGI), or maybe > they switch to VESA mode before switching to amd64 mode. > > However, there is no way to call the x86 VESA BIOS in amd64 > ("long") mode, because amd64 has no vm86 mode. It does not > work, and Gentoo certainly doesn't do that either. I don't know how Gentoo does it either, but I was thinking about this the other day, and wondered how possible it might be to write simple (non-fast) real-mode x86 emulator/interpreter (which could perhaps be unloaded when finished), just for this sort of thing. It wouldn't need to emulate hardware, which is what takes up a lot of complexity in systems like bochs, because you want the emulated code to frob the real hardware: that's the point. I have a vague recollection that Sun (and Apple?, and DEC?) had to do this sort of thing for their Sparc and PowerPC systems when they started building PCI systems around their non-x86 processors. Might even make ia32 systems neater, because you wouldn't need to muck about with vm86 mode to get those jobs done. -- Andrew