Re: Switching to Xorg

[Eduardo Horvath <eeh%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008, raymond.meyer%rambler.ru@localhost wrote:

> Does it have to have Sun firmware? I mean I'm not bothered about accessing 
> console during boot, as long as Xserver can initialise and redirect output to 
> a PCI graphics card. 
> For example, if I use ATI Rage 128, will Xorg be able to use it?

Graphic chips in particular typically have some top-secret initialization
that needs to be done to them and is relegated to the firmware.  ATI cards
are no exception.  On PCs, this is done by BIOS.  On SPARCs, this is done
by the FCode.  Without this initialization the graphic chip is completely
useless.  What's worse, on some systems this involves the chip's hardware 
looking for strapping options in a fixed location in "system BIOS".  Well
SPARC machines have no "system BIOS" and even if they did you can't get
there from here since the IOMMU needs to be fully initialized and the 
proper BARS must be configured in the PCI controller before the device can 
even think of getting through to the main bus.

Suffice it to say that you need a proper FCode image if you want to use
a graphic card on any SPARC or PowerPC machine.

After that you can start complaining about the kernel or X server being
unable to properly initialize the devce.

Eduardo