Re: fbdv/fbcon pending problems
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From: James Simmons <hidden>
Date: 2004-02-25 01:21:48
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Sure, hopefully fbdev drivers became more 'intelligent', with just a echo "1024x768x16-75" > /sys/class/fbdev/0/geometry they will compute internally the timings or get it from EDID and glad the user with something correct for the hardware. cat /sys/class/fbdev/0/modes will give you the modes supported by the card.
Yes.
On the other side i see a lot of effort in the fbdev acceleration, it is nice but that effort should be better spent on fixing the layer, imo, the only user for acceleration is fbcon, any userland app that use fbdev disables that acceleration so it can map the vmem and ioregs, and do it's own voodoo if it wants acceleration. That acceleration is not "exported" to user space. I am working in a open source project that uses mesa-solo with fbdev and many limitations from the layer itself have been seen.
That is true so far for fillrect and copyarea functions. Imageblit will be used for read and writes on /dev/fbX. Also it is used for software cursors.
By 'fixing the layer' i mean some simple things that could make fbdev
a real graphics solution for linux in the long term:
- fbdev_core (will handle the fbdev/sysfs registration, shared by all
drivers, most important is the modes handling interface).Pretty much done.
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
- fbdev_xxx (driver for specific hw, it will only export the interesting bits like vmem, ioregs, will handle mmap stuff and ioctl's, video modes, no accel of any kind).
Have it.
- fbdev_xxx_accel (acceleration hooks if any for xxx driver, optional module)
We need it for the above reasons.
- fbdev_con (handle console -- already modular in 2.6, will use accel hooks
if not NULL, optional).We always need the accel hooks. Some how we have to draw the fonts.
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
- fbdev_xxx_drm (will handle the DRM for xxx using hooks from fbdev, so we could have just a single entity inside the kernel handling a specific device, and not the current mess within fbdev and drm, optional).
That will be the future.
We have now with 2.6 a good input and sound layers. Just by fixing the graphics layer many interesting userland projects could be born.
I agree. The graphics layer is the last frontier. ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net is sponsored by: Speed Start Your Linux Apps Now. Build and deploy apps & Web services for Linux with a free DVD software kit from IBM. Click Now! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1356&alloc_id=3438&op=click