Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] [PATCH 5/5] VT binding: Add new doc file describing the feature

Geert Uytterhoeven
2006-06-12T08:32:37Z

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Antonino A. Daplas wrote:
> Jon Smirl wrote:
> > On 6/10/06, Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 6/10/06, Antonino A. Daplas <adaplas@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > I see now that you can have tty0-7 assigned to a different console
> >> > > driver than tty8-63.
> >> > > Why do I want to do this?
> >> >
> >> > Multi-head. I can have vgacon on the primary card for tty0-7,
> >> > fbcon on the secondary card for tty8-16.
> >>
> >
> > When I say dropped, I mean drop the feature of having multiple drivers
> > simultaneously open by the VT layer. You would still be able to switch
> > from vgacon to fbcon by using sysfs. You just wouldn't be able to use
> > VT swap hotkeys between them.
>
> Quoting you:
>
> "Googling around the only example I could find was someone with a VGA
> card and a Hercules card. They setup 8 consoles on each card."
>
> How do you think they accomplished that? They did not rewrite the VT
> layer, all they need to do is change the 'first' and 'last' parameter
> passed to take_over_console() in mdacon.c. This implies that the VT
> layer already supports multiple active VT console drivers, maybe as
> early as 2.2, and no, we won't remove that.

JFYI, probably 2.1.x. Multi-head dates back to at least 1996.

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