Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 14:51:31 -0800 From: Marcel Moolenaar <marcel@xcllnt.net> To: phk@freebsd.org Cc: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au>, Rodolphe Ortalo <ortalo@laas.fr>, arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: the mythical syscons redesign document ( was Re: Porting wscons ) Message-ID: <20030125225131.GA897@dhcp01.pn.xcllnt.net> In-Reply-To: <13888.1043532259@critter.freebsd.dk> References: <20030125215550.GA589@dhcp01.pn.xcllnt.net> <13888.1043532259@critter.freebsd.dk>
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On Sat, Jan 25, 2003 at 11:04:19PM +0100, phk@freebsd.org wrote: > In message <20030125215550.GA589@dhcp01.pn.xcllnt.net>, Marcel Moolenaar writes > : > >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: > > Will panic messages and DDB work in graphics mode ? It has to and I don't see any reason why it can't. Instead of depending on the existence of fonts on the graphics controllers we depend on fonts one can compile-in or pre-load in the loader. Switching to graphics mode to me does not imply using it for non-text purposes right away, although it opens up that door... > Will the kernel be sufficiently aware of the mode the Xserver have > put the screen in, to allow panic and DDB to work even when running X ? I cannot really answer this other than that if you pull more knowledge about the graphics hardware from userland into the kernel you increase the possibility. We basicly don't know anything about the hardware other than the VGA compatibility it provides. I don't think we need to know the ins and outs of the controller to make it work. I think we "only" need to know how to write to the frame buffer so that we can use the current mode, whatever it is. I think this problem is more naturally solved if we have the infrastructure in place to have the controller operate in graphics mode from as soon as we can... -- 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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