> On Thu, 6 Jun 1996, Jamie Lokier wrote:
>
> > * Support for VESA BIOS, just so that more cards get supported for
> > free.
>
> This keeps getting mentioned, but I'm not sure all the pieces are in
> place. Yes, VESA 2.0 is "32-bit". Does that actually mean it's usable from
> within Linux? More importantly, do _any_ cards have VESA 2.0 information
> built into the ROM? I hope I don't need to point out that a DOS VESA TSR
> (32-bit or not) is quite useless to Linux.
There may be one or two, but as far as I have seen, even very recent
cards (most anyway) only support up to maybe the 1.2 spec. Also, why does
this keep coming up? Why do you think DOS utils for VESA support keep
coming out, even for cards that have VBEs built on? Pretty much all the
integrated VESA support I've ever seen has been hopelessly broken,
needing DOS TSR's to be useful. Please folks, let's stay as far away from
this evil creature as possible. I know I don't want to touch it with a
ten-foot pole, it's just too broken to be useful to a high-end OS like
Linux.
Derrik Pates
dpates@cavern.nmsu.edu
-- Win95 isn't the problem - OS/2 and DOS are. Win95 is the answer. -- also -- Linux is the answer to the same problem. -- but -- Linux is free.