Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] [PATCH] aty128fb 15/16 bit cleanup

[James S. <jsi...@tr...>]

> If i want to do dma with this library, should i need to use the drm, or is
> some other possibilities available ?

For now yes. First the fbdev cleanup then the merging of DRI and fbdev.
The merging has to be done very carefully since hardware various quite
dramatically when going from PDAs to high end rendering farms. 

> How will a user-space library using the accel engine (it would clearly need a
> little 'driver' for each chip) cohabit with the acceleration used with fbcon ?
> 
> Also i suppose by "graphic" mode you are speaking about X, and by "text" mode,
> you are speaking about fbcon ?

Yes. fbcon would shutdown when going into "graphics" mode. This would
prevent any conflicts.

> Who will be responsible for setting the accel engine in a different state ? as
> XFree clearly thinks it is his responsability to do such. Or are you thinking
> only about the new X server ?

XFree86 is wrong in this department. The console system should handle it.
Who better to the knwo the hardware of the console system than the console
system itself. As linux is ported to more and more platforms less and less
of that graphics hardware will support vga text mode. Even when you place
your video card in a vga text mode besides 80x25 XFree86 has a hard time.
It makes to many assumptions which end up being wrong. Even without my
console changes XFree86 is broken. With my changes it still will be
broken. It just in the case of the new console code it reset the mode
itself and in the process fix any stupid mistakes XFree86 made.