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

[Michel <mic...@ii...>]

James Simmons wrote:
> 
> > 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.

Now that you had me convinced that using the DRM isn't sensible...

> The merging has to be done very carefully since hardware various quite
> dramatically when going from PDAs to high end rendering farms.

I'm curious how things will work out.


> > 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.

Hmm, XFree86 says you are wrong. ;)

> 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.

While I mostly agree for fbcon on Linux, I think this is a strong statement.
XFree86 tries hard to save and restore video of the VT it runs on. Granted, it
doesn't always work perfectly, but I'd say it works rather well given the
assumptions it makes and that it doesn't need any OS support.

> 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.

I'll also try to make XFree86 use the fbcon interface whenever appropriate.


-- 
Earthling Michel Dänzer (MrCooper)    \   Debian GNU/Linux (powerpc) developer
CS student, Free Software enthusiast   \        XFree86 and DRI project member