> Marek Habersack writes:
>
> [not this again!]
I'm sorry - but is the bracketed note above about my humble person?
> >> GGI Project Unhappy On Linux!
> > I'm not crying about that...
>
> You will be, because of the "Windows 98" video cards that don't
> have standard text mode support. I'm serious about that. The free
> text console is going to be gone in a few years. Then what?
> Would you like to see boot messages?
No. I won't buy shitty cards designed for Windows 98. Just the same as I won't
buy a GUI printer or WinModem. You will? They you'll be sorry.
> > a) Tridents are SHIT! Nobody uses them and who does, either simply cannot
> > afford a better card or doesn't know what are graphics cards for.
> > Well, no comments...
>
> Fine, you cannot afford a decent card. That is OK.
Hey! Hold your horses. Try to imagine (it can be hard) that there are many
80386 machines out there in the world that are still being used for the
smaller tasks - I've got one like this and it runs as a firewall - now, I
don't see any reason why would I have to buy a new video card just to use GGI.
But thank you for your understanding - I already feel better.
> > b) VESA is a DOS-only thing and WE (i.e. THEM) don't need it.
>
> On most cards, VESA is provided by a DOS TSR. Do you really
> want to put DOSEMU in the kernel?
Who said that? Not me! But a VESA is a well defined video interface that
encompasses both acceleration and normal features of video chips. Why develop
dozens of other interfaces when we can use one proven to be good? Besides
SciTech are releasing system-independent VESA2 modules that contain code to be
injected right into the application space. These modules require the kernel
ONLY to enable the application to access video memory and hardware registers.
See now why I think VESA should be on Linux?
> > c) They have their own programmers and the DON'T NEED anyone else
>
> If you insisted on VESA, I understand that.
I guess I'm too stupid, because I don't get your point.
> > read the docs in the more recent SVGAlib dists...
>
> That is a personal issue.
Huh? What is a personal issue - docs or SVGAlib?
> > The latest X servers don't run suid root anymore and I'm personally
> > working on a library that won't run suid root as well.
>
> If you have video card access, you can DMA right into kernel memory.
What's your point here?
> > I suppose that games are not on the list of the top 10 priorities
> > of the Linux people in the world.
>
> a. Yes they are.
Oh, are they?
> b. Somebody might want to use display postscript without X.
And that's closely related to games - how would I miss that?!
> >> SVGAlib sucks. It was great while it lasted, but its card support
> >> and model does not move well across platform.
> >
> > That's just because there's no real maintaier for it.
>
> SVGAlib will never do DMA.
OK. I believe you - you seem to know better than anyone else out there.
> > behind it is sick. I don't want to sound hostile, but isn't such a
> > monopolistic approach what makes Winblowz such a piece of crap?
> >
> Nope, it is the Microsoft priorities which are determined by marketing
> and the developers that only work for money.
For the first time I agree with you, but don't you think that there is a grain
of truth in what I said?
> > on behalf of the applications - all that in the hw-indep manner,
> > of course. And GGI goes WAY beyond it - and that's a bloat.
>
> You don't understand PC video hardware very well if you really think
> that you can set a video mode without a full video driver. It would
> work on a few cards, but not most. Maybe the Matrox Millennium is OK.
Of course I don't understand video hardware! I've just bought a "Graphics for
dummies" yesterday and that's where I take all my wisdom from! FYI. Setting a
video mode can be done (on the lowest level) by simply loading registers with
appropriate values and in an appropriate order. What remains for the video
driver is to map memory just as the given mode requires and a card supports -
and let the kernel know how to use the memory. But I guess I'm wrong again...
> > And, if time permits, I'll try to start a project of my own that
> > implements a simple and efficient interface - just the elements
> > we need, nothing else.
>
> That is what GGI does. If you simplify it any more, you have to open
> up huge security holes or restrict yourself to dumb framebuffer access.
True - especially when I implement a VESA2 and VESA/AF interfaces.
> > Is graphics all that counts in the world? Linux wins on all the
> > other fields - speed, security, efficiency, hardware support,
>
> **groan**
You seem to think that these features are not important, or at the least less
important that cool graphics (probably a'la Windows 98...) and 1.000 games
running on Linux. Get DOS if you need these right now.
> We have an X server that disables interrupts. That should make
> you scream. (hints: user-space, swapping, SMP...)
I'm not saying everything's perfect and that the GGI *IDEA* is wrong! On the
contrary, I fully support the IDEA, only the rest is what I don't like.
> >> interest than the Linux developers, and, it seems to me that this
> >> is a strange reversal of behaviour. I remember a time when Linux
> >> was considered more "open" to core development than BSD.
>
> Me too. :-(
Probably....
later, marek
---
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened
of the old ones.
John Cage
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