Package: fbset
Version: 2.1-19
Severity: normal
The file /usr/share/doc/fbset/kernel-doc/sisfb.txt.gz appears to be text copied
from an earlier version of
http://www.winischhofer.eu/linuxsispart1.shtml#21
There is important new information on sisfb for 2.6 kernels on that site that
should be included in the fbset documentation:
"Sisfb and 2.6 kernels
2.6 and later versions bring a lot of changes not only to the programming
internals, but to the handling by the user as well. The most important
changes are resulting from a complete separation between the framebuffer driver
(sisfb in our case) and the console driver (called fbcon). The
framebuffer driver now only handles the low-level hardware programming, while
the console layer is taking care of the rest. The intention of this was
to unify and simplify framebuffer drivers by moving all console code away from
them.
However, whether or not the developers succeeded in their intention is yet to
be decided.
A consequence of this approach is that, for a framebuffer console, two
parts/modules are needed: sisfb and fbcon.
As for the handling by the user, one very important fact to know is that
starting sisfb alone (if compiled as a module), does ... nothing. To be more
precise: It has no visible effect. The display mode (which is still given like
under 2.4, ie by mode=XxYxD or vesa=xxx) is not changed until you
either bind the framebuffer to a console by using a tool named con2fb (if the
console driver fbcon is compiled statically into the kernel) or by
loading the fbcon driver (if compiled as a module). At this point it might be
interesting for you to know that sisfb now no longer accepts mode=none
- simply because it is no longer required. You decide for yourself if you want
a graphical console by invoking con2fb or modprobing fbcon later. But
note: If sisfb as well as the console driver are statically compiled into the
kernel, the console driver will start automatically during boot. There
is no way around this at the moment.
Sounds complicated?
* sisfb and fbcon statically in kernel: The kernel will boot into graphics
mode. If no mode is specified, 800x600x8 will be used by default
(unless CRT2 type is LCD in which case it defaults to the LCD's native
resolution).
* sisfb is a module, fbcon is in the kernel: modprob[e]ing sisfb will not
change the display mode until you bind the framebuffer to a console by
con2fb.
* sisfb and fbcon are modules: modprob[e]ing sisfb will not change the
display mode until you modprobe fbcon. If no mode was given, 800x600x8
will be used by default (again, unless CRT2 type is LCD).
* sisfb in kernel, fbcon is a module: During boot, nothing visible happens,
display mode is changed upon modprobe fbcon.
Another important difference to the 2.4 series is that fbset (the tool to
change the console resolution under 2.4) is not more or less deprecated. I
say "more or less" because the console developers have not yet decided on where
to go from there they are now, namely the - IMHO - totally
inconvenient replacement stty. stty is currently intended to change the console
resolution, but the desired display mode is not, as we are all used
to, given by x resolution, y resolution, depth and refresh rate, but by rows
and cols in the unit of text characters. For instance, if you are using
the default console font (8x16), stty rows 48 cols 128 selects 1024x768.
If you execute fbset to change the display mode under 2.6, the console
dimension (ie the amount of columns and rows) will not change - resulting in
display corruption. Use fbset only to change the refresh rate and/or the depth."
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.20.11 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to
en_US)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Versions of packages fbset depends on:
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.13 Debian configuration management sy
ii libc6 2.5-8 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii makedev 2.3.1-83 creates device files in /dev
ii udev 0.105-4 /dev/ and hotplug management daemo
fbset recommends no packages.
-- debconf information:
fbset/create_framebuffer_devices:
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