[Linux-fbdev-devel] On i810/i815 fb issues

[Sottek, M. J <mat...@in...>]

I've read over some of the discussion of the i810/i815
framebuffer discussion, and given the code a cursory look. I
currently work for an embedded development group at Intel
and I've been doing X work for quite a while on these
chipsets, so I thought I would jump into the conversation.

First, looking at the code it seems the main reason this
fb driver hasn't received more support is due to the
competition between X and the fb driver for the gart
resources. Why don't we just make a version of this driver
that makes use of stolen memory only (1MB) and does not use
the ringbuffer. This would give us all modes under 1MB in
size (10x7 at 8bit, 8x6 at 16bit) which is the way the
chipset is supported in all non AGP environments. (OS2, Dos
etc.) This would remove all competition between X and the
fb driver for resources...makes everyone's life easier.

The major need for a framebuffer driver that my customers have
is for graphical booting, and very basic embedded output like
near-static displays. Almost all embedded devices that need
acceleration are doing so via X and only need the framebuffer
during bootup.

Other applications that wish to allocate a ringbuffer and
a larger framebuffer could do so with a (not default) option
such that the vast majority of users can have their boot
penguin and X too.  I think we could even get blits working
without the ringbuffer by programming the part directly, but
that has limited use anyway.

 I don't want to discourage use of the acceleration for the
devices that may need it, but I don't really want to see
lots of problems arise from people trying to use fbdev and
X at the same time to no avail.

please cc me on replies,
-Matt