It probably wouldn't be present on floppy bootdisks. At least as I envision
it, it's a load module that can be included or not. I see it as being
included only on the systems of those people who want it (you know, like
many Americans put up Christmas lights on their houses or bumper stickers on
their cars). Don't like it? Pull it out of your init ramdisk. Problem
solved.
Having said that, I probably wouldn't use it myself except for when I show off
Linux and X to people, or on customers' systems.
> >
> > (For that matter, wouldn't 640x400x256 work on all VGA cards, from 256k on
> > up?)
> >
> > Speaking of AltGr, there should be some way to pass the shift state
> > according to BIOS as of just before BIOS destruction to those procedures
> > that require it (perhaps as a kernel global)? I'm sure init would like to
> > hear about the shift state eventually as well...
>
> What are you talking about? You can get the state of the shift key
> from the kernel; no BIOS is needed.
It would be nice to sample the state of the shift keys at a certain time so
that we can make configuration decisions (hold down both control keys to
tack the word "emergency" on the end of the kernel command line, just the
left one for "single", and maybe one or two others). Much easier than LILO
(and faster, too).
The last moment of BIOS seemed like a convenient time. Another convenient
time might be when the "Linux %d.%d.%d" message is printed (though the point
of the graphical boot screen was to hide the thousands of scrolling messages
for the newbies... or was it?)
> Ulrich
-- Jon Pickard * 149 Olive St #45 * Paso Robles, CA 93446 * +1 805 2399518 "He singlehandedly destroyed the multibillion-dollar commercial Unix industry and yet he has a self-deprecating sense of humor. That means one thing: Linus rules!"