wonko@madness.tmok.com writes:

> even though he wasn't asking, i'll drop this point on you guys.
> anything that directly accesses the video hardware will break the
> second you try to port it to a SUN machine.  SUN does not allow
> direct framebuffer access, you have to use one of the video
> libraries to do anything "directly" with the framebuffer.  so,
> direct access to the video hardware would be a Bad Idea (TM)
> in general.

Buh? Any user program with sufficient priveleges can simply mmap
the frame buffer. That's exactly how X11 accesses it, and there's nothing
stopping any other program from using it. On Solaris, you can even mmap
the control registers for certain framebuffers (e.g. the cg14), so you
can set LUT contents, adjust video mode, etc.

You may need the "video libraries" to access the acceleration features
on the more modern framebuffers, but its hardly the case that you need
the libraries for any framebuffer access.

--Aaron