Calling VESA BIOS routines from kernel?

Adam J. Richter (adam@yggdrasil.com)
Sun, 12 Dec 1999 10:04:54 -0800

I am contemplating the idea of implementing support in the
kernel for calling the VESA video BIOS routines for reading DDC
timing information from the monitor (to improve autoconfiguration of
the X window system and svgalib). I see that the kernel APM support
appears to do something like this, but my naive attempt to do something
similar with the DDC calls resulted in a kernel panic.

So, I am wondering: are the APM calls special in that they
can still work even though the kernel has already thoroughly messed
with the hardware, put the process into 32-bit protected mode, and
so on, or are all VESA BIOS extensions generally supposed to support
being called from a 32-bit protected mode operating system (i.e., is there
hope for this approach, or do I have to try to hack the boot loader)?

Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 104
adam@yggdrasil.com \ / San Jose, California 95129-1034
+1 408 261-6630 | g g d r a s i l United States of America
fax +1 408 261-6631 "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."

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