Re: [ANNOUNCE]: VM86 Daemon

[Antonino Daplas <adaplas@pol.net>]

On Tue, 2003-04-01 at 08:07, Jon Smirl wrote:
> I didn't read through the code yet, is this being
> implemented by adding some new IOCTLs to the fb
> interface? For example an IOCTL to get the legal modes
> or to reset the card.
> 

It uses a dedicated device, /dev/vm86, which is unrelated to fb.

> Why does it need /dev/vm86, couldn't it just use the
> fb device and add some new IOCTLS?

A new device seems more powerful and more generic.  Generic in a sense
that other subsystems besides fbdev can use it to access the BIOS or
whatever.  More powerful because a dedicated device is also provided
with the functionality of the file system.  The daemon uses file
read/write to access data, select/poll to wait for device ready, and 1
ioctl call to let /dev/vm86 know that the daemon is loaded or to be
unloaded. If async IO works for regular files, it will also have that
functionality.
 
> 
> I would expect to the end user app to only interact
> with the /dev/fb, it would be unaware of the daemon.
> This would allow these functions to be transparently
> added to the driver if the need hardware info becomes available.
> 

Yes.  Behavior of /dev/fbX is still the same, except that when vm86d is
loaded, it provides additional functionality to vesafb. The user will
not notice that vm86d is there, except that he/she and applications can
now change the video mode. 

Tony
 
> =====
> Jon Smirl
> jonsmirl@yahoo.com
> 
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