Edward Shu wrote:
>
> I think there are two concepts to be clarified, VGA text console
> and VESA text console. VGA text console is the legacy way.
> In this proposal, you may mean the VESA text console when
> text console is mentioned, that emulates the text output with
> the VESA graphics mode. As VESA is a generic graphics
> standard with few hardware specific acceleration, the text
> rendering speed will be much slower causing flicking screen.
> I recommend to reserve some open interfaces for third-party to
> fully accelerating the text rendering under VESA text mode.
> Other comments in lines below.
I agree with this.. specifically I can see that *scrolling* can be slow
if not accelerated. I doubt just adding characters to the screen would
be a problem, though.
NetBSD's graphics console has a nice way of expressing bitblt support...
perhaps something similar can be used here.
- Garrett
>
>> 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.
> I am not sure you can find a right place to make the BIOS calls, because
> fast boot will be out of the real mode very early.
>
>>
>> 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.
> We actually have a srn driver to communicate with the X server to do
> suspend/resume.
> The srn driver protocol can be enhanced for vbiosd to act likely.
>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
