Re: Generic XF86Config

[Jeff Licquia <jeff@luci.org>]

On 25 Apr, Steven Pritchard wrote:
> 
> Jeff Licquia said:
>> You might want to look at the VGA16 X server.  It sets up an old-style
>> IBM VGA setup (640x480x16).  That's what XF86Setup uses to get X
>> started in an unconfigured state.
>> 
>> Either that, or if you want to assume that the hardware isn't too old,
>> you could set up the SVGA server in a VESA-standard mode.  I'd imagine
>> 16-bit color on 640x480 would be safe, or 800x600.
> 
> Or you could go a step further and just do a 2.2.x kernel with fbcon,
> then use XF86_FBDev.  That would let you use any VESA mode, at least
> on cards that do VESA right.  (That *should* be the vast majority of
> cards.)
> 
> Oh, and if I'm not mistaken, XF86_SVGA will only drive the subset of
> cards that it knows about.  While that's certainly a lot of cards, it
> isn't all of them.  Also, using fbcon has the advantage of being
> portable to non-x86 systems.

From Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt:
----
VESA BIOS Extentions Version 2.0 are required, because we need a linear 
frame buffer.
----

That's way fewer cards.  For example, I don't think I own a card that
is compliant with this requirement.  (My most up-to-date card is a
generic S3 VIRGE DX.)

The 2.2.6 kernel lists lots of FB drivers, all of which (I'm sure) can
be made modular, but then you're back to trying to probe the hardware
and figure out which driver to load.  And this at a time when
(technically) you may not even have your filesystem yet, unless you use
an initial RAM disk.

XF86_SVGA should drive all VESA-compliant cards in at least some VESA
mode.  That means no acceleration and probably a lower resolution on
some cards, but that's OK for the purposes here.

And, of course, XF86_VGA16 will drive any VGA-compliant card with any
VGA-capable monitor (in other words, anything better than EGA, with
the exception of a very few pass-through cards).



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