> Maybe it makes some sense for sparc64 in order to support a wider
> variety of display cards, but perhaps not for any sbus sparcs where
> all the necessary drivers are already in the kernel where they
> belong.

Indeed?  So what's the kernel-provided API to use the line-drawing
hardware on a cg6?  Or the blitter?

> That's the wacked out part.  As I understand it XFree86 is broken by
> design.  It cannot understand a proper framebuffer device driver and
> thinks it wants direct access to the hardware itself.

When it comes to probing buses, I agree with you.

When it comes to talking to the framebuffer, I disagree with you.  I do
not believe it would be acceptable to pay a syscall price for every
framebuffer operation.

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