From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jon Smirl Subject: Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] Generic VESA framebuffer driver and Video card BOOT? Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 22:03:12 -0400 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <9e47339104101519034137c795@mail.gmail.com> References: <416E6ADC.3007.294DF20D@localhost> <200410160551.40635.adaplas@hotpop.com> <9e47339104101516206c8597d3@mail.gmail.com> <200410160946.32644.adaplas@hotpop.com> Reply-To: Jon Smirl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <200410160946.32644.adaplas@hotpop.com> List-Id: , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, penguinppc-team@lists.penguinppc.org On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 09:50:32 +0800, Antonino A. Daplas wrote: > On Saturday 16 October 2004 07:20, Jon Smirl wrote: > > On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 05:51:38 +0800, Antonino A. Daplas > > > > wrote: > > > Yes, that is the downside to a userspace solution. How bad will that be? > > > Note that Jon Smirl is proposing a temporary console driver for early > > > boot messages until the primary console driver activates. > > > > Does anyone know exactly how big the window is from when a compiled in > > console activates until one that relies on initramfs loads? I don't > > think it is very big given that a lot of the early printk's are queued > > before they are displayed. > > There's a log of initialization that goes on between console_init() and > populate_rootfs(). However, console_init() will only initialize built-in > consoles (as pointed to by conswitchp) such as vgacon or dummycon. > However, the framebuffer system initialization does happen after > populate_rootfs(). We already have vgacon, promcon, sticon, mgacon, newportcon. What platforms (other than embedded) are not covered by these? The idea is to use one of these as a temporary console and not print anything on it except KERN_ERR level messages. Of course if you are a kernel developer you can change this. A working system would non have KERN_ERR messages during this phase and the screen would remain blank. Messages at levels other than KERN_ERR would be queued until populate_rootfs()/early user space time where they would then get displayed on the fbcon. fbcon will be a full console with mode setting capability and other fancy features. It would immediately go into graphics mode. -- Jon Smirl jonsmirl@gmail.com