Subject: Re: New snapshot of ATI Mach64 framebuffer driver
To: Frank van der Linden <fvdl@wasabisystems.com>
From: Andrew Gillham <gillham@vaultron.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 03/13/2002 14:20:08
On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 10:24:13PM +0100, Frank van der Linden wrote:
> 
> The mach64 framebuffer is a good thing because it's the chipset that
> came/comes on-board with some ultrasparc machines, and, I think, some macs.
> 
> However, it would be a bad idea to declare it a supported interface
> for other ports like the i386. First of all, if we want some kind of
> MI support it's best if it's added to wscons. On i386, it's pretty
> much impossible to support a /dev/fb, because it would mean duplicating
> much of the XFree86 effort for db drivers for each kind of card.
> Which would be a waste and totally impossible because of lack of
> manpower.

Hmm, I suppose it would nearly impossible to implement the API the X 
drivers use in some kind of shim LKM layer?  So a wrapper LKM + driver
could be loaded and wscons would use the card via the shim / emulation layer.

Then it wouldn't be duplicating the card drivers, just the interface that
they use.

-Andrew