On Jan 3, 2008 3:05 AM, Torsten Duwe duwe@lst.de wrote:
If you had mentioned that CONSOLE_VGA=1 PCI_ROM_RUN=0 does not compile and you are working on a free standing driver, that would have saved us from the irrelevant part of this discussion.
Exactly. Simple, clear bug reports are always useful. Took me a few minutes to fix.
So if nobody objects I'll commit the original patch, after the west coast has had a chance to comment ;-)
Luc's patch is unnecessary as submitted; it will eliminate an option that, in the past, was deemed desirable by some users (they may no longer care, it may no longer matter). You can just use the patch I sent, which fixes the problem and preserves behavior which, at one point, somebody wanted. When the code got broken I am not sure. That said, if the feeling is that we should go with Luc's patch, I have no objection.
I should comment on the "who wants an emulator in a free BIOS" argument; that discussion was resolved years ago, in favor or "lots of people need it, whether they want it or not" -- I don't like it either, but that's the way it goes. I was one of the strongest opponents of using the option ROMs. I no longer see any way out of using the option ROMs in some cases. It's the same reason we have binary blobs in the linux kernel (e.g. microcode patches); sometimes there is no choice.
So, even if we have a totally free driver for graphics, we will probably see continuing demand for the emulator, to support cards with option ROMs.
ron