Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 00:38:42 -0600 From: Chris Csanady <ccsanady@nyx.pr.mcs.net> To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) Cc: FreeBSD-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: pcvt/132 columns Message-ID: <199702180638.AAA05778@nyx.pr.mcs.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 17 Feb 1997 09:42:42 %2B0100. <Mutt.19970217094242.j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
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>As Chris Csanady wrote: > >> Just a thought, but what about using some sort of generic frame >> buffer driver in the kernel. I dont think it should be the >> responsibility of the Xserver or anything else to twiddle with the >> cards settings directly. The kernel would just need to know a few >> card specific things about setting timings, etc. > >Basically: Yes! > >However: have you ever counted the number of hardware-dependant code >lines in XFree86? No? Then you don't know what you're talking >about. :~) Last time i counted, we spoke about some 200+ Klines of C >code. :-O Others have mentioned that a frame buffer would be really slow, but that really wasn't my intention, I should have explained a little better. It seems I misused the term frame buffer.. what I was trying to get at was the seperation of the code that sets the state of the graphics card, and the code that uses it, with drawing, acceleration or whatever else. There would be a generic graphics driver of sorts, that is primarily concerned with setting the state of the graphics board. I dont know the specifics, but what I see is a kernel module for each of the cards that implements a certain set of functions that set the state. These would be well defined by the generic driver interface, and called when necessary to switch resolutions, etc. If such a standard interface were to be implemented in the X server, I think it would make it easy to creat kernel modules for this. I could be wrong, but it seems to me it would just be moving some code around, and it would benefit everyone. I think that this would be much easier than designing a generic acceleration and stuff the whole driver in the kernel, but would include most of the important benefits. I suppose this belongs on an XFree newsgroup or something.. Laters, Chris >Have a look at /usr/src/usr.sbin/pcvt/set2061/, just to get the >feeling for _one_ (now already fairly aged) piece of hardware that >needs to be supported, the ICD2061A clock synthesizer. > >-- >cheers, J"org > >joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE >Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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