From: Jakma, Paul (Paul.Jakma at domain compaq.com)
Date: Thu 23 Sep 1999 - 10:48:11 IST
> Well, that's an exaggeration. Some of the video drivers are
> in the kernel.
> The Linux Kernel has /dev/fb as well as the recent DRI
> (Direct Rendering
> Interface) stuff, for 3D acceleration for X/Mesa/GLX.
>
but fb is nothing more than a safe way of exporting the graphics hardware to
userspace. all the fancy stuff still has to be done in userspace. eg the
matrox fb driver knows how to get the card into fancy text modes and how to
get back to them. Accel still has to be done by userspace mmap'ing /dev/fbx
and tweaking the right bits of memory.
(there was something on glx-dev about this the other day).
Don't know about DRI, but as it's in the kernel i guess it does no more than
the bare minimum for safe concurrent access to graphics hardware.
(arbitration i guess).
> Kate
regards,
paul jakma.
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