Re: Comments on fbgen.c and fbcon-accel.c

["Michel Dänzer" <michel@daenzer.net>]

On Tue, 2002-05-07 at 10:00, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: 
> > > If it's really a problem, maybe we could figure out a way to detect when
> > > it's safe to optimize stuff away or as a last resort make it an option?
> > > 
> > I think if the gen_* interface is to be adopted, it will become a
> > problem. Detection is the best solution, but right now X and DRI do not
> > know that fb even exist so we can't get X to detect fb unless we
> > persuade the X people to do that.  I have tried X detection before by
> > checking the previous console number.  If the previous number is not a
> > valid console, we can presume that a non-console app used that.  But
> > this is not clean and there are too many conditions where this check
> > will fail. But then, I really don't understand the underlying console
> > interface, so an easier and more effective way may exist that I don't
> > know about.
> 
> The problem is that most drivers in XFree86 don't _want_ to be fbdev compliant.
> The solution is to convince the hardcode anti-fbdev XFree86 guys to use the
> fbdev if it's present. Fbdev is part of the kernel API. Circumventing the API
> is bad behavior.

The opposition seems to be mostly against the fbdev support being spread
over the drivers, which is hard to maintain. If we could move it into an
common layer, there should be no problem. I do have the basic idea how
to do it but I suspect it would require changes to the driver interface
so it might have to wait for XFree86 5.x (provided anyone actually tries
:).


-- 
Earthling Michel Dänzer (MrCooper)/ Debian GNU/Linux (powerpc) developer
XFree86 and DRI project member   /  CS student, Free Software enthusiast

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