Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 13:55:50 -0800 From: Marcel Moolenaar <marcel@xcllnt.net> To: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au> Cc: Rodolphe Ortalo <ortalo@laas.fr>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: the mythical syscons redesign document ( was Re: Porting wscons ) Message-ID: <20030125215550.GA589@dhcp01.pn.xcllnt.net> In-Reply-To: <20030125115351.GA21347@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> References: <20030123234431.GB555@athlon.pn.xcllnt.net> <Pine.LNX.4.21.0301242229490.489-100000@tempest.rod.fr> <20030125115351.GA21347@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au>
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On Sat, Jan 25, 2003 at 10:53:51PM +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote: > > Personally, I don't see why it's at all important to switch out of > text mode quickly. Kernel output messages are inherently text so > switching to a graphics mode just makes more work for the kernel. There are two reasons why I like switching to graphics mode early: 1. The machine on which we're running may or may not support text mode. Support for text mode may be sub-optimal due to the focus on graphics support. In the latter case it probably works, but the quality of the output may be low (only using 3/4 or 2/3 of the LCD area in text mode is low quality). Note that this low quality is not limited to kernel output. One has to work with it until ones favorite GUI is up and running. This includes the whole sysinstall process on new machines, possibly run by a first-time FreeBSD user who is used to Windows. Ouch... 2. 64-bit architectures obviously need more space to print addresses and there tends to be more memory mapping. During device probing, when the display width is limited to 80 characters, this more frequently results in line wraps than on 32-bit architectures. Switching to graphics mode allows us to take advantage of a longer line and thereby improving the "neatness" of the output. -- Marcel Moolenaar USPA: A-39004 marcel@xcllnt.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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