Btw, you could look at the radeonfb framebuffer I wrote for NetBSD.
Designing a framebuffer driver with basic character display capabilities
is not that hard. What is "hard" is doing the device initialization --
if you have OBP initializing the device for you, then it should not be
too bad. It will go a lot easier for you if you have documentation --
as this is an ATI product, good luck!
- Garrett
On 02/ 9/10 02:11 PM, Alexandre Chartre wrote:
On sun4v platforms, when Solaris boots, the OBP is removed from
the memory and you can not used it anymore when Solaris is running.
This is done in order to properly support virtualization (with
Logical Domains).
So when there is a frame buffer, the system checks if it has a
terminal emulator, if not then it switches to the virtual console
which is accessed using hypervisor calls.
alex.
On 02/09/10 13:56, jf simon wrote:
Hi,
we are designing an ultraSparc sun4v system with graphic
capability. using opensolaris, we already have xorg running on
the system using an ATI HD46xx radeon card. we also have
developped fcode so that the graphic can be used at OBP level.
the last step is to have a console frame buffer driver working
that would print solaris boot messages before X is started.
we thought that would be a piece of cake as it is said in solaris
documentation:
"...SPARC console frame buffer drivers are not required to be
compatible with the kernel terminal emulator. If the console
frame buffer driver is not compatible with the kernel terminal
emulator, the system uses the FCode terminal emulator in the
OpenBoot PROM...."
(see http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-3196/euazz?a=view)
so we figured we wouldn't have to provide a full fledged frame
buffer driver (that is with TEM support).
but that doesn't seem to work in the sun4v world. what happens is
that after OBP starts to boot the OS, there is a message saying
that the system is switching to the "virtual console" (RS232
link). this is coming from:
http://src.opensolaris.org/source/xref/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/uts/common/io/consconfig_dacf.c#consconfig_state_init
why is it that a system with virtual console is unable to "render
characters to the screen using OBP" ?
Developing a frame buffer is quite involved...so what are our
options? is there any source code available to start from?
Best regards,
_______________________________________
jean-francois simon - themis computer
5, rue irene joliot curie
38320 eybens - france
+33 (0)4 76 14 77 85 - www.themis.com
_______________________________________________
driver-discuss mailing list
driver-discuss@opensolaris.org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/driver-discuss
_______________________________________________
driver-discuss mailing list
driver-discuss@opensolaris.org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/driver-discuss
_______________________________________________
driver-discuss mailing list
driver-discuss@opensolaris.org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/driver-discuss
