Re: VESA FBconsole driver?

Geert Uytterhoeven
2003-03-14T10:04:42Z

On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Kendall Bennett wrote:
> Petr Vandrovec <vandrove@vc.cvut.cz> wrote:
> > Why you need it? To run some parts of VGA BIOS? Why you cannot run
> > them from userspace task? I think that it is much easier,
> > especially now when initramfs is here.
>
> The reason why it would nice is so that the VESA FBconsole driver (and in
> fact all the FBconsole drivers that use the real mode BIOS to set an
> initial display mode) can restore that mode correctly when an application
> exists and restores the console. Right now it is up to the application
> program to restore the console, as the kernel has absolutely no way to do
> it. If that program has not way to restore it (old SVGALib code for
> instance) or the application crashes, you are stuck with a black screen
> if you are using a framebuffer console. If the kernel knew how to call
> the BIOS to restore the mode, this problem could be completely eliminated
> and services could be provided to properly restore the system state when
> console graphics programs crash (or the X server for that matter if it
> crashes and does not properly clean up).

Assumed the BIOS can recover from whatever the application has done to the
graphics chipset...

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