Subject: Shocking news: no 24 bits colour
To: None <port-arm32@netbsd.org>
From: Reinoud Zandijk <imago@kabel065011.kabel.utwente.nl>
List: port-arm32
Date: 04/09/2001 15:23:15
Dear all,

euhm.. you might say i need a bullet for discovering this soo late but i
just discovered that the Xarm32VIDC doesnt even support 24 bit displays
even.... and since the old VIDC console *allways* goes to 8 bpp for its
console it allways just looked like it supported 24 bit colour modes.

This explains my long queeste to find the bug in the 24 bit mode switching
that i couldn't find .... I guess it was either never tested or has had
severe `bit-rot' during its development so it wont work now.

I'll re-instantiate the mode switching code again for the new wscons
console allthough it shouldn't make any difference.... my advice is only
not to use the 24 bpp modes for now until we figured out how to program
the VIDC decently for this mode.

On thing that is now on my list is getting X to work and looking at a neat
and clean way to specify monitor types and modes to the system... the
current way of just embedding these modes in the kernel isnt the way to go
in my opinion...

We either need to use : 1) a userland process gives the parameters (like
setdisplay) and only pass it enough information from the bootloader to
survive and print stuff until a user sets the display *or* 2) let a set be
specified by the bootloader at startup... allthough less flexible i am
looking at this too ...

Cheers,
Reinoud