A way to smoothly overgive graphics control to an other process/program

A way to smoothly overgive graphics control to an other process/program

[Dennis Heuer]

Hello,

I feel disturbed by the fact that when display-controlling programs are started in line (like the bootloader, linux, and finally xdm/gdm/kdm), there appear several switches of display resolution, text- and graphics mode, and background images. I asked myself how to get that more smooth as if there was only one presentation from the time the bootloader started up to the gnome/kde session. I thought that one could implement a small api that allows a running process to freeze display updates until the next process has overtaken the display, loaded the same presentation (from same location or just by similar configuration), dumped it to the working buffer of the graphics card, and released the display (a timeout with fallback-mode could make this transaction more fault-resistent). This way, the image loaded by the bootloader could be held on display up to the graphical login, and even as the desktop background, without any visible effect.

Is this technically feasible?

Regards

Dennis Heuer

Re: A way to smoothly overgive graphics control to an other process/program

[Måns Rullgård]

Dennis Heuer <dh@triple-media.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I feel disturbed by the fact that when display-controlling programs
> are started in line (like the bootloader, linux, and finally
> xdm/gdm/kdm), there appear several switches of display resolution,
> text- and graphics mode, and background images. I asked myself how to
> get that more smooth as if there was only one presentation from the
> time the bootloader started up to the gnome/kde session. I thought
> that one could implement a small api that allows a running process to
> freeze display updates until the next process has overtaken the
> display, loaded the same presentation (from same location or just by
> similar configuration), dumped it to the working buffer of the
> graphics card, and released the display (a timeout with fallback-mode
> could make this transaction more fault-resistent). This way, the image
> loaded by the bootloader could be held on display up to the graphical
> login, and even as the
>   desktop background, without any visible effect.
>
> Is this technically feasible?

It's technically pointless.  Take a look at bootsplash, though.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com

Re: A way to smoothly overgive graphics control to an other process/program

[Dennis Heuer]

> > Is this technically feasible?
> 
> It's technically pointless.  Take a look at bootsplash, though.
> 
> -- 
> Måns Rullgård
> mru@inprovide.com

Bootsplash does exactly what I was complaining about. It controls only some part of the process of *booting* into the desktop without smooth transition (though it's at least a nice toy). The rest of your answer hits me but doesn't help me a little. Sorry if I am a pointless non-geek.

Dennis