Subject: Re: Creator3D support on Ultra2
To: john heasley <heas@shrubbery.net>
From: Gert Doering <gert@greenie.muc.de>
List: port-sparc64
Date: 10/09/2004 19:23:51
Hi,

On Sat, Oct 09, 2004 at 09:44:28AM -0700, john heasley wrote:
> Sat, Oct 09, 2004 at 10:57:28AM +0200, Gert Doering:
> > Next question.  On "i386" with "Linux" (or something) usually one doesn't
> > need a kernel driver for the graphics card in question to get X11 running.
> 
> That is most likely not the case; more likely that you have a kitchen-sink
> kerenel that already has the driver or it gets loaded as a module.  There
> as to be some driver to control the card.

OK, I was unprecise here.  The way the PC stuff works (simplified) is that 
all (but very few) graphics cards have a VGA compatible text mode, so the
"kitchen sink" driver in the kernel can handle any card without a specific
driver - text mode only, of course.

The "graphics mode" part is only done by the X server, and for most VGA
cards, you don't need card specific kernel support.

So, from a users point of view, I don't need to do anything to the 
kernel config to get a VGA display driver... - and Sparc64 is quite
different here :-)

> > If so, which driver entries would one need in the kernel config file?
> > The only thing that I can find in 2.0RC4's "GENERIC32" is this:
> > 
> > ## Sun FFB not supported
> > #ffb*           at mainbus0
> > #wsdisplay*     at ffb?
> 
> both.   ffb drives the card.  see wsdisplay(4)

OK, thanks.  (wsdisplay(4) doesn't talk about ffb yet, but I assume it
will work nonetheless).

The U10 has two display cards, ATI and Creator 3D.  To use both, I assume
I have to add something like:

# Creator3D
ffb*           at mainbus0
wsdisplay*     at ffb?
# ATI Rage Pro, on PCI bus
vga*            at pci? dev ? function ?
wsdisplay*      at pcdisplay? console ?

is that correct?

> > John Heasly posted a list of options to set in a similar thread yesterday
> > (Subject: NetBSD on Ultra1/170E w/Creator3D), but his changes seem to
> > require additional patches (and the links given don't work).
> 
> I do not believe so, but I may have missed a piece.  if you contact
> me off list, I'll try to help you get it working.

Thanks for your offer.  More detailed questions will be sent directly.

(I copied the list on *this* one, so that other readers can understand
part of my confusion)

gert

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Gert Doering - Munich, Germany                             gert@greenie.muc.de
fax: +49-89-35655025                        gert@net.informatik.tu-muenchen.de