On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 08:59:19PM -0400, Jon Smirl wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com> wrote:
> >c) Lots of distros don't use fbdev drivers, forcing this on them to
> >use drm isn't an option.
> 
> Why isn't this an option? Will the distros that insist on continuing
> to ship three conflicting video drivers fighting over a single piece
> of hardware please stand up and be counted? Distros get new drivers
> all the time, why will this be any different?

Often they flat-out don't work.  Walk into a store and buy a random
laptop.  Odds are it uses an Intel graphics chip.  Now load intelfb on
this.  Watch it completely fail to set a mode, as intelfb has no
knowledge beyond what the CRTC was like on i810.

The support offered by fbdev drivers is laughable in comparison to the
support offered by X drivers.  If you're lucky, it fails cleanly.  If
not, you're silently failing to get a working display.