Re: Generic VESA framebuffer driver and Video card BOOT?
From: Pavel Machek <hidden>
Date: 2004-10-19 21:17:11
Also in:
lkml
Hi!
quoted
What about non-x86 platforms such as PowerPC and MIPS embedded devices that want video (TiVo type platforms, media players etc). How would these fit into the picture? Would this require the boot loader (ie: U-Boot or whatever) to have the ability to POST the card?There is the assumption that whatever BIOS the device has can get up a very early console that can output critical error messages before the kernel and early user space is loaded. For example the "I can't find the kernel" or "initramfs is missing" error message. This also assumes that the BIOS can post whatever display it is using. I'm not trying to fix the problem of getting early boot messages out of a Mac with an x86 card plugged into it. The card will work after early user space initializes. The right way to fix that would be to switch to something like LinuxBIOS and build the x86 emulator into it.
That still does not solve resume from suspend-to-RAM. We need to post VGA there. We probably could do it late in userspace... but it makes debugging resume pretty hard. Pavel -- People were complaining that M$ turns users into beta-testers... ...jr ghea gurz vagb qrirybcref, naq gurl frrz gb yvxr vg gung jnl!