Re: vesafb on archs !ia32 [Re: Calling VESA BIOS routines from kernel?]
Jeff Garzik (jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com)
Mon, 13 Dec 1999 19:06:05 -0500
Alan Cox wrote:
> Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > Any sort of kernel space hooks for an x86 emulator would be awesome. I
> > would use them immediately to get at some of the stuff S3 hides in its
> > BIOS.
>
> I really dont think you want it in kernel space. You might want a way to
> dispatch bios int calls but you want to do that via a virtualised user
> space PC - and that means virtualising bits of the bios, a low page copy,
> a copy of the EBDA, mmapping the bios, virtualising the interrupt controller
> and some other minor items.
>
> Its more of a heavily stripped DOSemu than anything else. That beings on user
> space.. definitely. Perhaps with an interface so the kernel can send it
> 'do this int copy these bytes' calls
That's pretty much what I meant when I said "kernel space hooks",
sorry. :)
I agree with Egbert, there should not be an x86 emulator in the kernel.
However, it would be very helpful to kernel space and user space alike
if someone developed a generic way for a device driver to do stuff like
int10 calls.
Regards,
Jeff
--
Jeff Garzik | Just once, I wish we would encounter
Building 1024 | an alien menace that wasn't immune to
MandrakeSoft, Inc. | bullets. -- The Brigadier, "Dr. Who"
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/