[coreboot] [patch] sb/via/k8t890: add vga textmode code for k8m890 chrome igp.

[Luc Verhaegen]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 04:06:45PM +0200, Luc Verhaegen wrote:
> 
> No; a general VGA bios is a broken concept to begin with.
> 
> What you should know is that VGA is _not_ a standard, and one should 
> never, ever try to change the mode without more detailed hw knowledge.
> It is only a standard through the int10 and vbe interfaces, where the 
> manufacturers vga bios does all the vga and hw specific stuff for you.
> 
> What such a general bios should do is find out, one way or another, what 
> mode has been set and how to stuff things into the framebuffer.
> 
> In this case: mode 3h: 80x25 with 8x16 fonts, with the framebuffer 
> living at 0xB8000 and with vga standard cursor and fb offset handling.
> 
> So a general int10 bios should find this out and then claim to only 
> support this and absolutely nothing else.
> 
> Everything else requires a whole bunch of hw specific code, and while 
> you could spend the rest of your days porting graphics drivers from fb 
> or X to this code, i think there are much better ways to spend ones 
> time.
> 
> Luc Verhaegen.

Let me further quantise this:

It would be great if there was int10 infrastructure which would do just 
the above.
* Seabios can show us its menu.
* Grub will then give us its menu too.
* The linux kernel will no longer think that it is talking to CGA and 
will use the correct fontsize while setting the cursor (so that we no 
longer get a floating cursor).

Luc Verhaegen.