Re: [pkgsel] Add xresprobe, discover and laptop detect for hw detection

[Daniel Stone <daniels@debian.org>]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 09:22:06AM -0200, Otavio Salvador wrote:
> Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
> >> Um, neither does xserver-xorg.{config,postinst,templates}.  So there's
> >> not much point until those get fixed.  I've been meaning to do it, but
> >> never got around to it.  (Don't count on me doing it, seriously.)
> >
> > I may do it on the purely xresprobe level, as time permits. not sure if i want
> > to handle the x scripts though.
> 
> Looks like xresprove should be the harder part. After have the need
> information available, it need to be used. I might be wrong.

I don't expect xresprobe to be hard.  There are two parts which will be
hard:
  a) making the xserver-xorg scripts understand multiple input and
     output devices, and
  b) getting DDC on multiple devices.

Right now we generally do DDC via VBE, which is kind of difficult when
you have multiple cards.  Doable, but really really nasty.  So what you
really want is the drivers to be split out into Xorg drivers, but also
libraries where you can initialise the card, look at its outputs, and
figure things out for yourself.  But that's, uhm, a bit of a pipe dream.

Also, one of the more difficult things to do properly is multiple
outputs on single cards, especially when it comes to laptops with
external displays.

It's not at all trivial, but fixing xresprobe is definitely the easiest
part.  Working out what you'll do about DDC, and fixing xserver-xorg;
now that's the hard part.