I am sponsoring the following fast-track on behalf of
Jan Setje-Eilers with a time-out of 01/22/2010.
The project desires minor binding.
------------------------------
Bitmapped Console PSARC/2009/415
1) Summary
The Bitmapped Console brings Support for higher resolutions and color
depth than the current VGA 640x480 16-color console on x86
systems. The initial delivery will support x86 systems using
traditional BIOS and VESA option ROMs. EFI systems, once supported
will leverage this work to enable their frame buffer consoles.
2) Technical Details
The following applies when a graphics card / frame buffer is being used
as a physical or virtual console. This project does not change the
behavior of serial consoles.
2.0) Overview
The loader (GRUB) automatically chooses an appropriate video mode
by intersecting available VESA modes with EDID reported display
capabilities and activates it. Any failure to obtain EDID or make
VESA calls will leave the system in VGA text mode which the OS
will use as it did previously.
Then it loads the OS as before and hands a description of the
mode to the OS via the vbe members of the multiboot info
structure. The early boot_console code which is used
pre-consconfig for console messages as well as early kmdb
interaction uses that description to map the described frame
buffer region and uses it as a bitmapped console device. At
consconfig gfx_private (which this project makes vgatext a
consumer of) takes over this role and the coherent console (tem)
is used to display the console on this frame buffer.
Side note: vgatext does not gain any specific vesa support, so it
is not being re-named. It simply passes down tem IOCTLs and
gfx_private will act appropriately.
During a typical non-interactive boot the current "happy face"
soothing image gains higher resolution and color depth typically
16-bit, often at a native panel resolution, a significant
improvement over 640x480 at 4-bit.
Any of the following events will stop the animation, clear the
screen and display the text that would otherwise have been on the
console at that point:
Entering kmdb by any means: mdb -K, panic, F1-a
Booting -kd skips graphics entirely as immediate interaction
is required.
sulogin running on console
Any key-press post kbtrans attach (prior to which only kmdb
can be interacted with).
The console login prompt is displayed and X is not expected to
start. This is determined by: svc:/system/console-login:default
being on-line while any service svc:/application/graphical-login
is disabled or in maintenance. If a graphical-login is enabled
a couple seconds is allowed for X to start and take over the
console frame buffer, then another reset to text mode is
attempted. This simply fails if X owns the console device at
that point, but catches configurations that run graphical-login
services without running X on console such as sunray servers.
2.1) Mode setting by GRUB
The GRUB splashimage command recognizes png files and will select
an appropriate mode based on the cards advertised VESA modes and
the display capabilities derived from the displays EDID. While
the splashimage command can precede the rest of the script comprising
the menu entry, the actual mode setting is deferred until the rest of
the other commands have succeeded (which means that at least a bootable
kernel has been loaded).
2.2) Graphical boot
During graphical boot /boot/solaris/boot-images/boot.png is
displayed as the background. To indicate progress
/boot/solaris/boot-images/stepN.png where N=0 to 14 are used
to display an alpha blended animation. Fewer than 15 images
may be provided.
This animation is displayed until either a key is pressed to
switch to text, or X takes over the console. If gdm is not
enabled, console login triggers a switch to text.
Lastly boot/solaris/images/shutdown.png is displayed during
shutdown. This can be disabled by setting load_shutdown_image on
the system/console-status service to false.
PNG was chosen based both on being a technically appropriate
format as well as it's attempt to avoid the licensing quagmire
that has plagued other formats. The png parsing code is based on
pnglite v. 0.1.17 which is covered by OSR 12682.
2.3) Console text mode
Console text mode will continue to default to 80 columns by 24
rows, but becomes configurable via the screen-#columns and
screen-#rows properties (as seen in OBP). This uses the existing
algorithms in tem that will pick an appropriately sized font and
make a best effort at achieving the desired rows and columns.
For example, the following properties which can be specified on the
kernel command line would enable the graphical display and attempt
to allocate a console terminal of 100 columns by 60 rows:
console=graphics,screen-#columns=100,screen-#rows=60
2.4) Resetting frame buffer state on exit from X
On exit X will generally attempt to restore the mode the card was
in before it started. While some native drivers do restore enough
state to reset a VESA mode properly, a number do not.
Since it is impractical to test and fix every native driver on all
cards, a method for explicitly setting the VESA mode at OS run-time
is used. Setting the mode requires execution of a call into the
VESA BIOS supplied by the card. This is achieved via vbiosd, a
daemon that provides userland x86 realmode emulation. This daemon
is a derivative work based on uvesafb::v86d, covered by OSR 12387.
While the mode is set by vbiosd in userland, the state continues to
be tracked by the KD_TEXT/KD_GRAPHICS states in the gfx_private
lower-layer of the kernel driver. Mode changes happen in
gfx_private and invoke vbiosd via a door.
If X does not exit cleanly, the native driver can leave the card
in an unknown state. This project does not change that behavior.
vbiosd is managed by svc:/system/vbios. While it is only required
when X is running, an effort must be made to keep the console in
a sane state when X is started by something other than smf, such as
say running Xorg manually, so the vbios service is always started.
2.5) Resetting frame buffer state on fast reboot
Since the boot loader does not run during fast reboot, the kernel
needs to ensure that the graphics card is in a sane state. This is
achieved by setting the appropriate mode early on while the system
can still make BIOS calls.
2.6) Resetting frame buffer state on suspend/resume
Since userland must be running for vbiosd to reset the mode, the
mode can not be reset directly as part of the resume entries. Rather
another thread in the daemon, is invoked that is pause()d with a SIGTHAW
handler that will send a KD_RESUME ioctl to the console device when
invoked, which in turn invokes the vbiosd door thread to set the proper
VESA mode.
3) Interfaces
3.1) Committed interfaces
The possible states of the console property:
text text output in either VGA text mode or VESA
graphics mode depending on the mode set by
the booter or system capabilities.
force-text text output in VGA text mode regardless of the
mode set by the booter
graphics if the booter sets a VESA graphics mode, the
graphical boot images are loaded and displayed
if not the system will default to text output
in VGA text mode
ttya/ttyb serial output (not impacted by this work)
In case of error the system will fall back to VGA text mode, but
the value of the console property is not re-written.
force-text exists to allow for continued compatibility with
external screen readers and the like.
Console terminal sizing properties:
screen-#columns
screen-#rows
Additional Solaris VISUAL I/O control operation, commited in line
with the previous vis_ interfaces which were made stable in
PSARC/2003/432:
VIS_CONSCLEAR this ioctl() takes a struct vis_consclear which
defines the background color to be used to clear the screen.
struct vis_consclear {
unsigned char bg_color; /* Background color */
};
3.2) Project private interfaces
The following previously defined members of the multiboot_info
structure are now used to pass pointers to structures describing
the VESA implementation of the system. While they are derived
from an external standard, their use here is project private:
unsigned long vbe_control_info;
unsigned long vbe_mode_info;
unsigned short vbe_mode;
unsigned short vbe_interface_seg;
unsigned short vbe_interface_off;
unsigned short vbe_interface_len;
They point to the following structures which are defined by the
VESA spec:
struct VbeInfoBlock {
uint8_t VbeSignature[4];
uint16_t VbeVersion;
uint32_t OemStringPtr;
uint32_t Capabilities;
uint32_t ModeListPtr;
uint16_t TotalMemory;
uint16_t OemSoftwareRev;
uint32_t OemVendorNamePtr;
uint32_t OemProductNamePtr;
uint32_t OemProductRevPtr;
uint8_t Reserved[222];
uint8_t OemData[256];
} __attribute__((packed));
struct ModeInfoBlock {
uint16_t ModeAttributes;
uint8_t WinAAttributes;
uint8_t WinBAttributes;
uint16_t WinGranularity;
uint16_t WinSize;
uint16_t WinASegment;
uint16_t WinBSegment;
uint32_t WinFuncPtr;
uint16_t BytesPerScanLine;
/* >= 1.2 */
uint16_t XResolution;
uint16_t YResolution;
uint8_t XCharSize;
uint8_t YCharSize;
uint8_t NumberOfPlanes;
uint8_t BitsPerPixel;
uint8_t NumberOfBanks;
uint8_t MemoryModel;
uint8_t BankSize;
uint8_t NumberOfImagePages;
uint8_t Reserved1;
/* direct color */
uint8_t RedMaskSize;
uint8_t RedFieldPosition;
uint8_t GreenMaskSize;
uint8_t GreenFieldPosition;
uint8_t BlueMaskSize;
uint8_t BlueFieldPosition;
uint8_t RsvdMaskSize;
uint8_t RsvdFieldPosition;
uint8_t DirectColorModeInfo;
/* >= 2.0 */
uint32_t PhysBasePtr;
uint8_t Reserved2[6];
/* >= 3.0 */
uint16_t LinBytesPerScanLine;
uint8_t BnkNumberOfImagePages;
uint8_t LinNumberOfImagePages;
uint8_t LinRedMaskSize;
uint8_t LinRedFieldPosition;
uint8_t LinGreenMaskSize;
uint8_t LinGreenFieldPosition;
uint8_t LinBlueMaskSize;
uint8_t LinBlueFieldPosition;
uint8_t LinRsvdMaskSize;
uint8_t LinRsvdFieldPosition;
uint32_t MaxPixelClock;
uint8_t Reserved3[189];
} __attribute__((packed));
3.3) Uncommitted interfaces
Service fmri and binary for the daemon. The service does
not currently expose any properties.
vbiosd: svc:/system/vbios
usr/sbin/vbiosd
4) Man page diffs
visual_io(7I)
498a499,514
> > VIS_CONSCLEAR Clear the screen. The driver is expected to
> > paint the whole screen with the background
> > color specified in the vis_consclear
> > structure.
> >
> > The argument is a pointer to a vis_consclear structure
> > which contains the following fields:
> >
> > struct vis_consclear {
> > unsigned char bg_color;
> > };
> >
> > bg_color specifies the background color to be used to paint
> > the screen. Only driver that set mode to VIS_PIXEL with the
> > VIS_DEVINIT ioctl are expected to have to handle this ioctl.
> >
eeprom(1m)
109,116c109,120
< ttyb, and text. In text mode, console output goes to the
< frame buffer and input comes from the keyboard. When
< this property is not present, the console device falls
< back to the device specified by input-device and
< output-device. When neither the console property or the
< input-device and output-device property pair are
< present, the console defaults to the frame buffer and
< keyboard.
---
> > ttyb, text, graphics and force-text. In text mode, console
> > output goes to the frame buffer and input comes from the
> > keyboard. A variant of text mode, graphics displays an image
> > with an animation until either a key is pressed or console
> > interaction is required by console login, sulogin, or kmdb. A
> > further variant of text, force-text will avoid using a VGA
> > adapter as a bitmapped device setting it to VGA text mode.
> > When this property is not present, the console device falls
> > back to the device specified by input-device and
> > output-device. When neither the console property or the
> > input-device and output-device property pair are present, the
> > console defaults to the frame buffer and keyboard.
117a122
> > screen-#columns screen-#rows
118a124,129
> > When screen is set to either graphics or text on a bitmapped
> > device, screen-#columns and screen-#rows allow the desired
> > number columns and rows of text to be specified. They default
> > to 80 and 24 respectively.
> >
5) References
VESA BIOS EXTENSION (VBE) Core Functions Standard Version: 3.0
Please contact the project team for a pointer to a copy.
pnglite OSR
https://opensourcereview.central.sun.com/app?action=ViewReq&traq_num=12682
uvesafb::v86d OSR
https://opensourcereview.central.sun.com/app?action=ViewReq&traq_num=12387
