From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Aug 5 14:14:16 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA25238 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Wed, 5 Aug 1998 14:14:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from freedomnet.com (freedomnet.com [198.240.104.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA25227 for ; Wed, 5 Aug 1998 14:14:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kbyanc@freedomnet.com) Received: from freedomnet.com (tech.freedomnet.com [198.240.104.20]) by freedomnet.com (8.8.7/8.8.7/antispam) with ESMTP id QAA00585 for ; Wed, 5 Aug 1998 16:59:32 -0400 (EDT) X-Envelope-To: Message-ID: <35C8CA87.3DD72E40@freedomnet.com> Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 17:11:35 -0400 From: Kelly Yancey Organization: FreedomNet - http://www.freedomnet.com/ X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: syscons update Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I have written an update to the freebsd syscons driver and vidcontrol program to allow for 4 new VGA text modes: 90x25, 90x30, 90x50, 90x60. Yes, 90 columns wide. I had written an assembly program years ago that ran under DOS that switched to 90 columns wide...it works fine on every VGA and SVGA adapter I have ever run across. Basically, it just toggles the VGA adapter from using 9 pixel wide characters to 8 pixel wide characters and then adjusts the horizontal counts accordingly. I'm wrapping up the code for that so I can submit it to the team to include in future FreeBSD releases. But that's not why I'm posting (that was just the self gratifaction segment :) )...the syscons code is hideous. Talk about one overworked driver. Now it handles screen output, keyboard input, and text-mode mouse functions. It also appears that there is some sort of intent to add basic graphics functions to the syscons driver. I had some ideas, which I wanted to run by everyone else and see what you all think. I realize that most are probably to radical to be practical since I imagine vidcontrol and kbdcontrol aren't the only programs that interact with the syscons driver itimately. * Division of functionality: right now, moused watches the mouse device and notifies the console driver of any changes which in turn notifies sysmouse. Why doesn't moused interact directly with sysmouse... isolating all the mouse functionality to sysmouse. Then, if the user wants a mouse cursor in text mode, the console driver is welcome to interact with sysmouse like every other program does. What am I missing? And more importantly, it seems to me that the code should at least be split up, if not the functionality. Why not separate source files containing the display, keyboard, and mouse related routines in the syscons driver? Just because it is one driver, doesn't mean it has to be a single source file. I think that would go a long way toward improving the code readability. * Continuing on the idea of dividing the work...improve the graphics support: currently things are sort of strange: X supposedly a userland program has to ship with video drivers. Why isn't this in the OS? Not only would it make X's job easier...but it would allow other user programs to easily use graphics without having to be written for X (like games). The way I see this working is by having video adapter drivers like we have sound card drivers or network card drivers. Basic vidmono, vidcga, videga, vidvga drivers could be extracted from the currently syscons code. The console driver then just interacts with the video adapter driver. Also a bonus: you could have more than one video card in a system with different video drivers loaded, which are all managed by the syscons driver. Wahla...multiple physical and virtual console support native to the OS (it's not just for X anymore). However, a basic set of ioctl functions should be defined for video adapter drivers for certain functions. For example: an ioctl to determine what video modes are available and another to select the video mode. ioctl values could be defined for many graphics acceleration features. User programs could then interface with the syscons driver to do graphics on the current console (virtual or physical), if the video driver for that console supports hardware acceleration for a function, the syscons driver could call that, otherwise it can piece it together from other functions if possible. So, the way I envision things: hardware: keyboard mouse video ... | | | | sysmouse vga0 (or other video driver) | | | `------console-----' /|\ / | \ user land programs That goal of all of this rearranging would be to encourage development for the FreeBSD system mainly in the area of graphics programming. At the moment is seems that Linux is getting a lot more attention in that area (for better for for worse). I've been using BSD derivatives (FreeBSD and BSDi) for several years now and think, personally, it wipes the floor with linux. It is a shame to see it get many of the new inovations first now just because of it's recent popularity. I realize that what I'm suggesting is a major overhaul of one of the oldest and most fundimental aspects of FreeBSD, or Unix in general. But it is a driver that dates back to teletype terminals and it showing it's dating. It seems to me that there is at least some interest in modernizing the console interface (else, why add the text mouse support), so why just play catch up when we could leap ahead? I would love to see video adapters fully supported by the OS just like everything else is. Who knows, maybe one day the console driver will actually support just the text modes available on my SuperVGA card, not to mention graphics and 3D acceleration. My rantings. :) I am interested to know what other people think. I'de be even more interested in knowing if the FreeBSD core team would allow be to begin work on this master plan :) I'de be glad to get it started...but I know my own limitations...there is no way I'de be able to write all the SuperVGA video drivers myself. I could at least write drivers including all of the current functionality plus CGA, EGA, and VGA graphics (text modes, mouse, etc.) I guess I'm just looking for opinions and support. Your input is welcome, Thanks for listening, Kelly Yancey ~kbyanc@freedomnet.com~ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message