Re: Meta Alt oh my!
On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 18:27, Frank Murphy wrote:
> > > >> and ideally also the framebuffer ones?
> > > >
> > > > Option "UseFBDev" does that.
> > >
> > > OK, I thought about that after hitting the send button. But
> > > then again, at the moment the X drivers seem to be more developed than
> > > the kernel ones. I guess eventually the kernel drivers should achieve
> > > parity, and then we'd have a radical simplification.
> >
> > I don't see Linus accepting video drivers of the X calibre in his
> > kernel...
>
> Any idea why that is? Just that he wants the kernel drivers to be small and
> foolproof and leave the fancy acceleration to programs that want it (like X)?
I can't speak for him, but I guess those are important points.
> > > In other words, I guess FBDev at the moment isn't practical,
> > > meaning, won't usually give same performand and (or) features?
> >
> > People keep confusing Option "UseFBDev" and the fbdev driver. The former
> > basically provides the same features as the driver it's used with does
> > without, the latter is a generic driver and hence can't provide any
> > hardware specific features.
>
> I don't totally follow you here. The fbdev driver is what can be specified in
> the Device section by 'Driver "fbdev"' but just uses the "bare metal" linux
> fbdev driver, with no 2D or 3D acceleration. Using 'Option "UseFBDev"' would
> be an option in a Device section which was configured with 'Driver "ati"' or
> some other driver. But I don't understand the benefit.
The benefits are e.g. better cooperation between X and console (in fact,
you may lose console display without it in some cases) and sometimes
easier access to some features, e.g. backlight control on Apple laptops.
--
Earthling Michel Dänzer \ Debian (powerpc), XFree86 and DRI developer
Software libre enthusiast \ http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=daenzer
Reply to: