On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 10:49:01PM -0600, Andy Ball wrote:

> This is really interesting. At the moment I'm running mostly
> /i386 (I should have mentioned that), and if I understand
> correctly wscons just get to use the modes offered by the
> vga driver, which are a reasonable subset of the text modes
> provided by the display adaptor.

the problem with i386 is the console is not using
framebuffer but a mode that is available on all
video cards and you cannot load any font like you
would do on a framebuffer based machine like powerpc,
sparc and some other machines, sadly.

you can load a 8x16 or 8x8 font. so we are restricted
to those fonts for now under i386. the trick to be able
to load any font we would like is to write code to
support use of framebuffer. trouble: this has to be
done for (almost) each kind of graphic card. so we would
have to write code for (for example) ati cards, then
nvidia cards and so on and we might even have to handle
some brand cards in different ways according to their
revision or model. best would be to have a framebuffer
device with code on kernel land (a core team member
would know better so we should ask them) like it's done
on linux. 

using framebuffer can be pretty fun. you can browse
graphically with a text browser or launch playing of
a video directly from console :)

trouble is framebuffer hits the video ram of card,
so you get one console. using gnu screen makes it
pretty nice to use if you want several consoles
but if you do some stuff like sending a video to the
framebuffer you can't "switch" to another console
(well that's how it worked when i played with it
two years ago from linux - it might have improved
since but i don't know at all).

some cards are also borked like the ati ones when
you ask them to switch to 80x50 mode ; hopefully
you can build a kernel with the following option:

options VGA_CONSOLE_ATI_BROKEN_FONTSEL

(probably post-1.6.1 ; will be in 1.6.2 anyway)

> It's been a while since I looked in there.  I will check it
> out again now.

:)

> What was the native screen mode of the 12" iBook? Were there
> any larger fonts available?  Is it possible to drive the
> console in a different screen mode?  (two questions asked
> with Mark in mind).

you can see that from the open firmware. it's built
like a "tree" where you can move around (using "cd")
and check local properties (typing ".properties").
you can even insert a cd, and see what's on the cd
directly from open firmware :) netbsd docs about
open firmware cover all this information

i dont recall what's the 12" resolution on boot,
but as far i remember it's 8-bit depth set to the
default display resolution (which is 800x600 and
can be set to 1024x768).

we have to boot one, get into open firmware and
check the current resolution from there. some
ibook models allow (when you use them from open
or netbsd) to change the bit depth from open firmware,
but that doesn't work on some models : it works
on models past 2001 (12" called "dual usb") but
on my own model i could set the variable value
but it was stuck to 8-bit depth (this was also
confirmed by miod from openbsd project : he told
me that using 8-bit was the only way to get a
somewhat fast text on console because moving to
16-bit or higher would make it very, very slow.
using 8-bit depth on console + gnu screen makes
it faster but surely not as fast as a i386 80x50
console (and you have to split the screen in
half most of the time under gnu screen on ibook
to have it behave fast enough like when building
a kernel or alike - the slow speed of scrolling
makes things go slow... it's just awful)

> I would welcome the howto, even though I don't have an iBook
> to try it on at present.

i'm gonna grab my sister's ibook and install
a netbsd there + panther. from it i'll write
an install howto + small font on console.
i'll tell you once done, won't take me too long.

>> http://open.bsdcow.net/articles/ibook-faq/ibook8.html
> 
> Thanks, I'll check that out.

that howto was for openbsd. it's pretty close
to netbsd (install is a little tricker from
netbsd but that's only a problem from newbies)

>   GF> you just have to select a bigger font. this works
>     > pretty nice on framebuffer machines like the ibook is
>     > and most mac machines :)
> 
> Nice.  This might work on my SPARCstation or older 68k Macs.

not sure about 68k models. as long they boot
with framebuffer active under netbsd it's ok
but i don't have any to check. SPARC does boot
on framebuffer mode.

-- 
Gilbert Fernandes