Re: Generic VESA framebuffer driver and Video card BOOT?

From: Kendall Bennett
Date: Thu Oct 14 2004 - 18:26:02 EST


Andi Kleen <ak@xxxxxx> wrote:

> "Kendall Bennett" <KendallB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> > So what do you guys think?
>
> How big is the module with emulator etc.?

About 150K compiled on x86 (before linking so that has symbol information
etc in it).

> Normally putting such an emulator into kernel space doesn't sound
> very attractive, but if it's small enough it can be perhaps
> considered. Still it might be better to do it in user space.

It is small, but for the purposes we need it for it wasn't possible to
put the code into user space. We thought about keeping it in user space
but unfortunately the code is needed when the framebuffer console driver
initialises which is very early in the boot sequence. So unless there is
a way to spawn a user mode process that early in the boot sequence (it
would have to come from the initrd image I expect) then the only option
is to compile it into the kernel.

Regards,

---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com

~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~


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