Re: what is a framebuffer?
On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 01:51:55PM +0200, JM Bourdaret wrote:
>
> setting your kernel/modules to use the framebuffer of your videocard will
> permit you to set the resolution of your screen, like 1024x768 16 million
> colors at 85kHz refresh ... from there, you can use those high
> resolution to do what ever you want, your text console (alt-f1,f2...) can
> be 1200x1000 ... you can even run a special XFree86 server on top of it
> (used mostly by non-x86 linux, like amiga and atari ... i dont know why,
> maybe they have problems with classic xfree)
Well, for one thing (I'm running on an old powermac and can only run
framebuffer), most non-x86 systems don't have a hardware text mode, and so
the framebuffer is needed just to get console running in linux. So this
means that by far the easiest way to configure your xserver is by setting
it to use the framebuffer (which with XFree86 4 isn't a separate server,
just a separate driver, as I understand). Since the kernel needs to
implement the framebuffer for these systems, if they use weird video cards,
those cards often (as in my case) don't have supported drivers for XFree86,
so we're stuck using the framebuffer.
I am most certainly not an expert on the subject, though...
--
David Roundy
http://civet.berkeley.edu/droundy/
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