[haiku-development] Re: Makeshift patch for PPC

> "François Revol" <revol@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > I recall seeing a Linux-ppc patch to implement vm86 emulation on
> > ppc
> > to
> > be able to run the VESA BIOS on those, that seemed a bit clumsy but
> > maybe the only way to really get some cards working.
>
> Indeed. Although usually, the PPC firmware takes care of the
> initialization, so Haiku doesn't have to care about this anymore (if
> it
> is not interested in changing the screen resolution afterwards).

Yes but it only knows about some cards, and those that have a PPC-
friendly ROM with a forth driver, which must be quite rare.
Others it likely just ignores.

> > Does app_server actually hardcode "vesa" ?
> > As long as there is a device published it should try it before
> > using
> > vesa anyway, so if we make sure to publish an of-fb device it
> > shouldn't
> > be a problem.
>
> It's hard-coded in the sense that it is ignored when there is another
> device available. This special treatment, however, could be removed
> once all graphics drivers follow the new driver architecture.
>
> > The same problem with be there for m68k anyway.
>
> Just that you usually will have built-in graphics that require a
> driver
> anyway.

Yes.
But note some falcon clones (Milan, Hades) indeed have a PCI bus :)

> > What about instead of using a "fallback_" or other prefix or
> > suffix,
> > like "vesa_fallback", and filtering out strstr("_fallback") at the
> > first pass when finding devices ?
> >
> > Another option is to have a "fallback" symlink pointing to "vesa"
> > or
> > "of" or whatever, but that requires the driver publishing it via
> > devfs.
>
> I think the VESA driver should still be able to work off of a
> predefined framebuffer and resolution only.
> Maybe we can rename it to something more appropriate (and leave the
> VESA driver as is), but since it's the fallback driver anyway, I
> think
> we can and should just keep it as is (by making the vm86 support
> optional).

+1

François.

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