Rotated menu on EFI?

Rotated menu on EFI?

[Michal Suchanek]

Hello

Is there some chance that the grub menu could be drawn rotated on
graphical devices like the efi graphics interface?

Thanks

Michal

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Robert Millan]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 09:33:45PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
> Hello
> 
> Is there some chance that the grub menu could be drawn rotated on
> graphical devices like the efi graphics interface?

I'm not sure what you mean by rotation.  You mean that arrow keys
navigate back to the top when pressing "down" in the bottom?

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Michal Suchanek]

2009/7/25 Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 09:33:45PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>> Is there some chance that the grub menu could be drawn rotated on
>> graphical devices like the efi graphics interface?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by rotation.  You mean that arrow keys
> navigate back to the top when pressing "down" in the bottom?
>


No, I mean that the arrow keys work normally but the menu is drawn
rotated to match the screen orientation.

Thanks

Michal

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

>
>
> No, I mean that the arrow keys work normally but the menu is drawn
> rotated to match the screen orientation.
This would require
(a) video support for EFI. This is simple to implement once
framebuffer split is in
(b) rotation support in gfxterm. Patches are welcome
>
> Thanks
>
> Michal
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>



-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko

Personal git repository: http://repo.or.cz/w/grub2/phcoder.git

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Michal Suchanek]

2009/7/25 Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko <phcoder@gmail.com>:
>>
>>
>> No, I mean that the arrow keys work normally but the menu is drawn
>> rotated to match the screen orientation.
> This would require
> (a) video support for EFI. This is simple to implement once
> framebuffer split is in
> (b) rotation support in gfxterm. Patches are welcome

I was able to run gfxterm in qemu.

Looking at the VideoSubsystem I wonder at what level the rotation
should be implemented. It could probably be done in gfxterm and
blit_glyph only which would be quite simple.

True video rotation would be somewhat harder but transparent to other
users of the video subsystem. Most functions could just go through a
simple remapping of coordinates except for the bitmap storing and
blitting functions. Rotated blitting is obviously somewhat harder and
slower (unless done by real video hardware) and rotating the stored
bitmaps is not very nice either.

I found two problems while trying to get gfxterm running.

The first one is with grub_mkrescue: it seems to ignore --modules=
option. I specified --modules=gfxterm but gfxterm still has to be
loaded in the grub.cfg. Another problem with this option is that the
format is unspecified. Are the modules separated by commas, spaces, or
other separators?

The other problem is graphics initialization. Unless I run "vbetest"
before "terminal_output gfxterm" gfxterm says "no suitable videomode
found".

Thanks

Michal

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Robert Millan]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 10:03:50PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
> 2009/7/25 Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
> > On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 09:33:45PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
> >> Hello
> >>
> >> Is there some chance that the grub menu could be drawn rotated on
> >> graphical devices like the efi graphics interface?
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean by rotation.  You mean that arrow keys
> > navigate back to the top when pressing "down" in the bottom?
> >
> 
> 
> No, I mean that the arrow keys work normally but the menu is drawn
> rotated to match the screen orientation.

As Vladimir points out, this can eventually work on EFI too, but EFI is
lagging behind when it comes to graphical support.  In any case, if we
really want to support rotation it should be generic.

Btw, were you thinking about rotation in multiples of PI/2, or arbitrary
floats?  The former is not too hard, but the latter can be a PITA, I don't
think it's worth it.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 7:57 PM, Robert Millan<rmh@aybabtu.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 10:03:50PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>> 2009/7/25 Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
>> > On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 09:33:45PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>> >> Hello
>> >>
>> >> Is there some chance that the grub menu could be drawn rotated on
>> >> graphical devices like the efi graphics interface?
>> >
>> > I'm not sure what you mean by rotation.  You mean that arrow keys
>> > navigate back to the top when pressing "down" in the bottom?
>> >
>>
>>
>> No, I mean that the arrow keys work normally but the menu is drawn
>> rotated to match the screen orientation.
>
> As Vladimir points out, this can eventually work on EFI too, but EFI is
> lagging behind when it comes to graphical support.  In any case, if we
> really want to support rotation it should be generic.
>
Yes. As about where to put it I would say to driver so it can be
accelerated if it's possible. For non-accelerated targets rotation
function will be in video_fb.mod
> Btw, were you thinking about rotation in multiples of PI/2, or arbitrary
> floats?  The former is not too hard, but the latter can be a PITA, I don't
> think it's worth it.
>
> --
> Robert Millan
>
>  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
>  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
>  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>



-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko

Personal git repository: http://repo.or.cz/w/grub2/phcoder.git

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Michal Suchanek]

2009/7/28 Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
> On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 10:03:50PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>> 2009/7/25 Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
>> > On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 09:33:45PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>> >> Hello
>> >>
>> >> Is there some chance that the grub menu could be drawn rotated on
>> >> graphical devices like the efi graphics interface?
>> >
>> > I'm not sure what you mean by rotation.  You mean that arrow keys
>> > navigate back to the top when pressing "down" in the bottom?
>> >
>>
>>
>> No, I mean that the arrow keys work normally but the menu is drawn
>> rotated to match the screen orientation.
>
> As Vladimir points out, this can eventually work on EFI too, but EFI is
> lagging behind when it comes to graphical support.  In any case, if we
> really want to support rotation it should be generic.
>
> Btw, were you thinking about rotation in multiples of PI/2, or arbitrary
> floats?  The former is not too hard, but the latter can be a PITA, I don't
> think it's worth it.

I am thinking about the rotation which is required to turn a landscape
monitor into a portrait one which is commonly used.

It is technically possible to arbitrarily rotate the picture but then
you would need support for arbitrary screen shapes (shapes other than
rectangles parallel with the axis) which is quite pointless for grub.

On second thought adding general rotation would be probably simpler
than changing gfxterm to do the rotation by itself. It gives much
better code separation and manageability.

The only problem is that there is a possibility to upload bitmaps into
the video subsystem and rotating these would need additional memory
because I know no way of rotating a non-square bitmap in place. Even
if the bitmaps were rotated only when they are actually used it still
requires additional memory.

Thanks

Michal

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

>
> I am thinking about the rotation which is required to turn a landscape
> monitor into a portrait one which is commonly used.
>
> It is technically possible to arbitrarily rotate the picture but then
> you would need support for arbitrary screen shapes (shapes other than
> rectangles parallel with the axis) which is quite pointless for grub.
>
> On second thought adding general rotation would be probably simpler
> than changing gfxterm to do the rotation by itself. It gives much
> better code separation and manageability.
>
Adding rotation to arbitrary angle would require implementing of sines
and cosines. And this risks to be terribly slow. Additionally few gfx
drivers support such rotation. I really see no reason for such
headache for us either. To make long story short rotation to arbitrary
angle is a NO WAY as far as I'm concerned
>
> Thanks
>
> Michal
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>



-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko

Personal git repository: http://repo.or.cz/w/grub2/phcoder.git

Re: Rotated menu on EFI?

[Michal Suchanek]

2009/7/28 Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko <phcoder@gmail.com>:
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 7:57 PM, Robert Millan<rmh@aybabtu.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 10:03:50PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>>> 2009/7/25 Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
>>> > On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 09:33:45PM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>>> >> Hello
>>> >>
>>> >> Is there some chance that the grub menu could be drawn rotated on
>>> >> graphical devices like the efi graphics interface?
>>> >
>>> > I'm not sure what you mean by rotation.  You mean that arrow keys
>>> > navigate back to the top when pressing "down" in the bottom?
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>> No, I mean that the arrow keys work normally but the menu is drawn
>>> rotated to match the screen orientation.
>>
>> As Vladimir points out, this can eventually work on EFI too, but EFI is
>> lagging behind when it comes to graphical support.  In any case, if we
>> really want to support rotation it should be generic.
>>
> Yes. As about where to put it I would say to driver so it can be
> accelerated if it's possible. For non-accelerated targets rotation
> function will be in video_fb.mod

Unfortunately, with the code I have there is no place to put the
rotation other than the driver.

This would mean that every unaccelerated framebuffer driver would have
to duplicate it.

I will have a look at your driver split patch to see if it improves
the situation.

Thanks

Michal