Re: fb with S3 Verge

David Woodhouse (David.Woodhouse@mvhi.com)
Fri, 12 Feb 1999 14:04:08 +0000

bgerst@quark.vpplus.com said:
> That depends on the BIOS more than the chipset. When I had a Virge,
> I had to load a DOS TSR to get VBE2.0 compatability. This could work
> with Linux as well, using loadlin. The only thing that doesn't work
> is the limited protected mode functionality of VBE2.0, since the TSR
> is overwritten after bootup.

The etherboot code has a very primitive DOS emulator which allows DOS packet
drivers to be embedded into it's BIOS startup code. Any chance of doing a
similar thing here, to load the DOS TSR during the Linux bootup sequence, and
remove the need for DOS and loadlin?

Some BSDs, I believe, handle it differently - they can switch back to real
(vm86?) mode and call a VESA 1.2 BIOS directly.

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David Woodhouse David.Woodhouse@mvhi.com Office: (+44) 1223 810302
Project Leader, Process Information Systems Mobile: (+44) 976 658355
Axiom (Cambridge) Ltd., Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridge, CB5 0NA, UK.
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