Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[John Zielinski]

Silly question.  Is it actually possible to run a fb program like fbtest 
if your console is the VGA console?  I tried it but the fb driver 
doesn't seem to switch modes.

John





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Re: Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, John Zielinski wrote:
> Silly question.  Is it actually possible to run a fb program like fbtest 
> if your console is the VGA console?  I tried it but the fb driver 
> doesn't seem to switch modes.

No, you cannot. You need an active frame buffer device driver.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds



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Re: Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[John Zielinski]

Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:

>On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, John Zielinski wrote:
>  
>
>>Silly question.  Is it actually possible to run a fb program like fbtest 
>>if your console is the VGA console?  I tried it but the fb driver 
>>doesn't seem to switch modes.
>>    
>>
>
>No, you cannot. You need an active frame buffer device driver.
>
>  
>

I have the low level radeon fb driver in the kernel and it initializes 
like usual, but I turned off the frame buffer console option.   I was 
wondering if the frame buffer programs can run like this.  If not then I 
won't have to worry about that kind of configuration when working on fb 
programs.

John





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Re: Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, John Zielinski wrote:
> Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> >On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, John Zielinski wrote:
> >>Silly question.  Is it actually possible to run a fb program like fbtest 
> >>if your console is the VGA console?  I tried it but the fb driver 
> >>doesn't seem to switch modes.
> >
> >No, you cannot. You need an active frame buffer device driver.
> 
> I have the low level radeon fb driver in the kernel and it initializes 
> like usual, but I turned off the frame buffer console option.   I was 

So you have an active frame buffer device (you can check this using `cat
/proc/fb')....

> wondering if the frame buffer programs can run like this.  If not then I 
> won't have to worry about that kind of configuration when working on fb 
> programs.

... and fbtest should work. You cannot switch between graphcis and text mode,
though, since there's no console attached to your frame buffer device.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds




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Re: Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[John Zielinski]

Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:

> So you have an active frame buffer device (you can check this using `cat
>
>/proc/fb')....
>
>  
>
Yep.  Same contents as when using fbcon.

>... and fbtest should work. You cannot switch between graphcis and text mode,
>though, since there's no console attached to your frame buffer device.
>
>  
>
Huh?  Now I'm confused.  Do you mean that I can't go between text and 
graphics using fbset or some other such utility or do you mean that 
fbtest can't go between text and graphics modes?  Because it's the 
latter that's happening by the looks of things.  It's not going into 
graphics mode to do the test.

John





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Re: Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, John Zielinski wrote:
> Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> >... and fbtest should work. You cannot switch between graphcis and text mode,
> >though, since there's no console attached to your frame buffer device.
> >
> Huh?  Now I'm confused.  Do you mean that I can't go between text and 
> graphics using fbset or some other such utility or do you mean that 
> fbtest can't go between text and graphics modes?  Because it's the 
> latter that's happening by the looks of things.  It's not going into 
> graphics mode to do the test.

I meant that you can't use the KDSETMODE ioctl if there's no console attached
to the frame buffer device.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds



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Re: Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[John Zielinski]

Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:

>I meant that you can't use the KDSETMODE ioctl if there's no console attached
>to the frame buffer device.
>  
>
Ok.  My last patched fixed that.  I tried it using a remote ssh 
connection and it worked perfectly.

What's happening here is that the radeon driver doesn't switch the 
card's video mode when I run the test.  The fbtest program also shows a 
limited set of capabilities (no color modes) when I run it and aborts 
with a signal 11.  It also kills the VGA font since I'm not saving video 
memory anymore.   I noticed the other drivers do a VGA save/restore when 
they are opened or closed.

Time to look at the code some more...

John





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Re: Running frame buffer programs using a VGA console?

[James Simmons]

> On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, John Zielinski wrote:
> > Silly question.  Is it actually possible to run a fb program like fbtest 
> > if your console is the VGA console?  I tried it but the fb driver 
> > doesn't seem to switch modes.
> 
> No, you cannot. You need an active frame buffer device driver.

It depends on the setup and driver. With the riva and vga16fb driver you 
can. You just enable fbdev support without fbcon and use vgacon. It works 
:-) 




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