VESA FBconsole driver?

Kendall Bennett
2003-03-12T18:57:22Z

Hi Guys,

A long time ago I remember there was a guy working on a VESA FBconsole
driver for Linux. Then driver he was working on was structured as a user
land daemon that the kernel console driver would call back into once the
system was up, allowing the userland VESA driver to use the vm86()
service to change modes, program the palette and other useful things that
can't be done by the basic driver that uses a mode set previously by LILO
or GRUB.

My first question is, did this project ever get completed and included in
the Linux kernel at all? Does anyone have any reference to this project
that you can point me at?

My second question is, is it possible to execute vm86() services from
*within* the kernel as opposed to from user land? I got the impression at
the time that the userland daemon was used because vm86() could only be
called from userland code and could not be called from within the kernel
to execute real mode VESA BIOS services. Is that correct? If not, can
vm86() services now be called from other kernel modules inside the
kernel?

Feel free to email me directly with information if this is an FAQ to keep
traffic off the list.

Thanks!

---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com

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