From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1161066AbWFKC0R (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:26:17 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932530AbWFKC0R (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:26:17 -0400 Received: from nz-out-0102.google.com ([64.233.162.196]:45260 "EHLO nz-out-0102.google.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932469AbWFKC0Q (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:26:16 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=ExDkf0lZNni/7T/HADWAfO8tWcd0Y7DQR6hWkDMBeL9ni9RJLmYEo3Om1/Yz4GqogFeToAVcL6afu/dWLAamg8O4ICNXDzSlKCgZ0w2vwzhWQGrnKsQdER/5otZmUdS/9l2RzvT+QwgFdHJZjDWX8PzENRuVllIDvkhhSb4Ddwo= Message-ID: <9e4733910606101926h73addc1j7cbb4027d3d9f41e@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:26:15 -0400 From: "Jon Smirl" To: "Antonino A. Daplas" Subject: Re: [PATCH 5/5] VT binding: Add new doc file describing the feature Cc: "Andrew Morton" , "Linux Fbdev development list" , "Linux Kernel Development" , "Greg KH" In-Reply-To: <448B7594.6040408@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <44893407.4020507@gmail.com> <9e4733910606092253n7fe4e074xe54eaec0fe4149f3@mail.gmail.com> <448AC8BE.7090202@gmail.com> <9e4733910606100916r74615af8i34d37f323414034c@mail.gmail.com> <448B38F8.2000402@gmail.com> <9e4733910606101644j79b3d8a5ud7431564f4f42c7f@mail.gmail.com> <448B61F9.4060507@gmail.com> <9e4733910606101749r77d72a56mbcf6fb3505eb1de0@mail.gmail.com> <9e4733910606101805t3060c0cdgd08ceabe8cfe4e0e@mail.gmail.com> <448B7594.6040408@gmail.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 6/10/06, Antonino A. Daplas wrote: > Jon Smirl wrote: > > On 6/10/06, Jon Smirl wrote: > >> On 6/10/06, Antonino A. Daplas wrote: > >> > > I see now that you can have tty0-7 assigned to a different console > >> > > driver than tty8-63. > >> > > Why do I want to do this? > >> > > >> > Multi-head. I can have vgacon on the primary card for tty0-7, > >> > fbcon on the secondary card for tty8-16. > >> > > > > When I say dropped, I mean drop the feature of having multiple drivers > > simultaneously open by the VT layer. You would still be able to switch > > from vgacon to fbcon by using sysfs. You just wouldn't be able to use > > VT swap hotkeys between them. > > Quoting you: > > "Googling around the only example I could find was someone with a VGA > card and a Hercules card. They setup 8 consoles on each card." > > How do you think they accomplished that? They did not rewrite the VT > layer, all they need to do is change the 'first' and 'last' parameter > passed to take_over_console() in mdacon.c. This implies that the VT > layer already supports multiple active VT console drivers, maybe as > early as 2.2, and no, we won't remove that. But the hardware has changed. The kernel is missing a lot of the support needed for multiple VGA cards in a single box so that option isn't legal. So this needs to be done with non-VGA cards. Are there non-VGA cards still in production where a user would want to put multiple cards in their box? As far as I know they aren't any in the x86 world, I don't know about other architectures. All modern Hercules cards are VGA based, they use NVidia and ATI chips. The reference was from 1998, they were referring to the ancient Hercules cards that were non-VGA. Back in the days of CGA, MDA, HGC, 8514, etc this situation was common, but now everything is VGA. -- Jon Smirl jonsmirl@gmail.com