On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 06:13:33PM +0100, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
- Peter Stuge stuge-linuxbios@cdy.org [021214 16:04]:
The kernel framebuffer driver from NatSemi will work just fine without XpressGRAPHICS though - it's just legacy VGA emulation that doesn't work.
Which version of the fb driver did you use? I did not get any light on the screen with the 2 versions I tried, neither on TV out nor on VGA out. With the original Award BIOS (not XpressROM) it works.
I haven't tried it myself but it was my understanding that it would work, I believe I've read success stories on this list.. But I might be wrong.
My own experience is from the BLDT mostly if not always including XpressGRAPHICS, and even then the kernel framebuffer wouldn't work if I set the video RAM size to anything but 4MB. That might be something worth checking out for you. Any other setting led to black output or stray green pixels here and there.
There has been talk about implementing support for VSA2 in LinuxBIOS and some discussion on licensing issues for the VSA ROM blobs included with the BLDT (aka XpressLOADER) but no code has been written yet. This might partly be because we're out of documentation and maybe partly because noone has really needed it yet.
The documentation would probably not be a problem, but the question is whether the code that allows loading VSA modules is not NatSemi IP.
The one in XpressROM and the BLDT surely is, but I don't think they can claim rights to someone else's work if they've granted access to the relevant documentation..
//Peter