Re: OpenGL-based framebuffer concepts

On Sun, 28 May 2006, Jon Smirl wrote:

b) loading fbdev drivers breaks X in a lot of cases, we need to be a
bit more careful.

It is perfectly legal to load an fbdev driver with X today. If it
doesn't work it is a bug in X and should be fixed.

c) Lots of distros don't use fbdev drivers, forcing this on them to
use drm isn't an option.

Why isn't this an option? Will the distros that insist on continuing
to ship three conflicting video drivers fighting over a single piece
of hardware please stand up and be counted? Distros get new drivers
all the time, why will this be any different?

as a long time linux user I tend to not to use the framebuffer, but instead use the standard vga text drivers (with X and sometimes dri/drm).

in part this dates back to my early experiances with the framebuffer code when it was first introduced, but I still find that the framebuffer is not as nice to use as the simpler direct access for text modes. and when I start X up it doesn't need a framebuffer, so why suffer with the performance hit of the framebuffer?

yes, some hardware requires a framebuffer to display anything, but for most video cards, the hardware scrolling of a pure text mode is better (faster, smoother, less cpu required, etc) then the framebuffer equivalent.

David Lang
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