Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 12:55:02 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: reset screen hardware? Message-ID: <19970818125502.35086@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199708171949.MAA07244@phaeton.artisoft.com>; from Terry Lambert on Sun, Aug 17, 1997 at 12:49:09PM -0700 References: <199708171009.TAA04212@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> <199708171949.MAA07244@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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On Sun, Aug 17, 1997 at 12:49:09PM -0700, Terry Lambert wrote: >> That's _right_. But it achieves this by knowing, in fact having >> _been_told_ in advance what the hardware is, and thus having >> hardware-specific intelligence. The point is that this intelligence >> is foreign to the kernel, unmaintainable in the kernel environment, >> and _inevitably_ will lag, often indefinitely, behind hardware >> development. > > 1) Make X use the kernel driver. Period. This is necessary > whether the driver is card-specific, generic BIOS-based, > or generic VGA (and BIOS) based. > > 2) Default to a generic VGA driver. This is your fallback > position for "anything which works is better than anything > which doesn't". > > 3) If there is a card specific driver and you have the card, > load the LKM for it at boot time after the FS's are mounted > and the driver code can be located. Use the LKM driver in > place of the generic driver from then on. So far, so good. Pretty much my position... > 4) If you are running an ELF/OLF kernel, and the VM system > supports section attribution and section naming, discard > the "generic VGA" section after loading the LKM. > > 5) If you are running an ELF/OLF kernel, and you have a > section archiver available, you may (at your option), > take the generic kernel, dearchive the section(s) > containing the generic VGA driver, and replace them > with the section(s) for the card specific driver. > > 6) If you are running an ELF/OLF kernel, and you have a > section archiver available, you may "tune" the kernel > down to the point where it contains *only* drivers > for existing hardware and reasonably expected expansion > hardware. > > 7) ...ROM that kernel! (And other nifty things...). I think we need to sell them on the first three points first. Greg
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