Re: [coLinux-devel] Virtual Device Drivers

[Pat E. <pat...@ma...>]

>   - Virtual Sound driver
>          very easy.

agreed

>   - Virtual Mouse driver
>          easy. but it should be "seamless" like when you
>          installed VMware tools to VMware.

if we don't implement a frame buffer or a virtual display device, I see no reason for a mouse to be needed.  If you mean for copy/paste, I reccomend a proper text console and let the host OS handle copy/paste(much like bjh's console)

>   - Virtual Printer driver
>          print documents from coLinux through Windows.
>          this is easy if you rasterize rightly.
>          so if you can print on linux logically,
>          ( solving font, cups/ghostscript settings...)
>          you can print on coLinux physically.

this can be done already using samba, but a post script virtual printer on the windows side seems the easiest.  perhaps have a virtual printer device that says it's PS compatible and have it pass the PS file to ghost script in the host OS.

>   - Virtual Frame buffer
>          Performance is the key. BitBlt all frame is easy, but slow.
>          It must bitblt only a region which is updated. How?
>          And second point is, is this really necessary?
>          If you use only X, cygwin/X is enough.

this could get pretty difficult, having to pass messages back and forth between the host os and the guest os to handle events, clicks etc.  I believe our current framework, or a special version of vnc would be better.  Perhaps modify vnc to take out the net layer dependance and provide it a mmaped io or a different pipe.

but, as always,those are just my opinions.

Pat