Subject:
RE: nanoGui development
From:
Alex Holden ####@####.####
Date:
3 May 1999 22:03:08 -0000
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.04.9905032249570.363-100000@hyperspace>
On Mon, 3 May 1999, Greg Haerr wrote:
> Thanks for answering so quickly. It seems like you've got no
> problem with me moving this stuff forward, since you've got other projects and
> exams. I've been looking for just this kind of initial project, since I'm into
> "small" systems, guis, compiler/interpreters.
Yep, no problem. I find it interesting making systems which require less
than 64MB Ram and a 1GB hard disk to run optimally too :) I've spent quite
a bit of time developing for small PICs, and it's amazing what you can do
with a few hundred bytes if that's all you have.
> I'll get all this stuff working, and change a few things so that
> the project can be compiled as client/server, as well as a non-network version. I also
> have some ideas on how to better integrate the "screen drivers" (bogl) so that
> different bits-per-pixel etc can be supported, and that the screen driver interface
> is extremely well defined.
Okay, I was talking to someone else who has also ported mini-X to
Linux-2.2 framebuffer, but done it without bogl. He was interested in
merging his work with nano-X, but I haven't been able to contact him
lately as his DNS is dead. If his code is a better way of doing it than
bogl, I might use that instead, but I haven't seen it yet. Certainly a way
of supporting more bit-depth levels, preferrably in the same binary with
autodetection, is needed.
> I got into this because I've been watching the ELKS development work,
> and they were wondering whether this work could used for their project. The answer
That's something I've never played with...
> is absolutely yes, although some direct real-mode linked in frame-buffer support would
> be necessary. To get ready for that, and the associated possible 16-bit compiles, this
> project should use typedefs for the internal types, like colors, and x,y,w,h stuff. I would
> like to typedef all that stuff. All-in-all, this would allow for nanoGui to become quite
> portable.
Yes, quite a lot of it is typedef'd to start with.
> On another note, it took me quite a while to figure out the v2.2 framebuffer support,
> since I was running v2.0. It might be a good idea to include some setup info in your
> FAQ. With the low-level interface well implemented, it would also be fairly straight-forward
> to include support for vgalib, which would allow older v2.0 linux users to run this.
I never used the framebuffer on a 2.0 kernel... Perhaps a pointer to the
Alex Buell's Framebuffer-HOWTO would be a good idea?
--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------
