On Fri, 2002-12-06 at 20:31, Nathan E Norman wrote: > On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 11:54:52AM -0500, Jason Wojciechowski wrote: > > Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > > > Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a > > > framebuffer console is insane. > > > > Why? > > Beats me ... STFW for the answer. > > I run a framebuffer; Sparc sucks without one. > > -- > Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd > better not start writing it. > -- Edsger Dijkstra
Linus (from a quote and various other observations I've seen) considers framebuffer on i386, umm, "less than ideal" (my words) as a general configuration choice as, from my understanding of the words I've seen and how it exists in the kernel, it is an incomplete and inconsistent implementation on i386 - some graphics cards are not so well supported as others, and simple SVGA functions are capable of the significant range of framebuffer functions with vastly less overhead than running the console strictly in graphics mode. Framebuffer is needed on some systems that don't have text modes comparable to the PC-style systems, but unless you *need* framebuffer functions on an i386-style PC, you are not necessarily doing things the most efficient way if you are doing most of your work on the console strictly with text and no modified fonts, and as various graphics cards only have *experimental* code implementing framebuffer, you are playing with potential buggy code in the kernel for not necessarily any performance benefit over a currently more reliable user-mode solution. -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
