Subject: Re: VGA driver changes for machines without built-in font
To: Izumi Tsutsui <tsutsui@ceres.dti.ne.jp>
From: Martin Husemann <martin@duskware.de>
List: port-arc
Date: 01/15/2003 20:52:29
On Wed, Jan 15, 2003 at 10:42:05PM +0900, Izumi Tsutsui wrote:

> Background:
> NEC Express5800/240 (and maybe RISCserver2200) has the Cirrus Logic
> GD5428 VGA chip on ISA for its console, but ARCBIOS on the machine
> doesn't use text mode and vga_common_probe() in sys/dev/ic/vga_common.c
> will fail if VGA is not set up in text mode, so it won't be attached
> (even for rasterconsole).

I would suggest you look at dev/pci/machfb.c and/or dev/pci/igsfb_pci.c.

IMHO it's better to have a special frontend recognizing and setting up
the card (and providing card specific accelerations, without the thing will
be dog slow), and returning a higher match value so it is prefered over
the generic VGA driver.

Once we start gettting multiple such beasts, of course they should share
as much code as possible, maybe even with the generic vga driver.

Martin