[RFC and 1/2 OT] Re: ANNOUNCE New Open Source X server

["mirabilos" <eccesys@topmail.de>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Simmons" <jsimmons@linux-fbdev.org>
To: "Scott Prader" <gnea@rochester.rr.com>
Cc: "Linux Kernel Mailing List" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 5:16 PM
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE New Open Source X server


>
> Thank you. It is true all I want to do is help the community. I feel
as
> alot of people do XFree86 can not meet the needs of the community. It
is
> very sad that people feel that no amount of people in the open source
> community can make code of the same or better quality as XFree86 in a
> shorter period of time. I don't feel this way. Now I'm off to work on
code
> and documentation for the project. Thank you.

My idea were: why not integrate kind of Nano-X (yes I know what that is)
into the kernel, just the X server, configured by make menuconfig (or
which you like more), and just use XF86 or something different (or even
X clients running under a different machine on the net) on it.

It should then implement enough of, if not the full, X11R6 API, and have
either direct access to the gfx board or at least to the fb (might this
be speeded up?).

It doesn't need to be fullstly (?) integrated to the kernel, it may also
be a "server" (as in microkernel systems), loaded as module but on CPL3.
So a crash doesn't hang the full system: if it crashes, we have a SysRq
which kicks out the module and does either a videomode-switch to a sane
80x25 (BIOS 03), VGA (BIOS 12) or - if framebuffer-based - nothing
because
the X server and the fb are separated.
We might as well support EGA, HGC or CGA(??) cards for it; switching to
a sane mode isn't that difficult (as discussed earlier, and for HGC I
have some NASM sources), and IIRC there is a HGC framebuffer somewhere.

-mirabilos
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