From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753460AbXDBLW0 (ORCPT ); Mon, 2 Apr 2007 07:22:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753490AbXDBLW0 (ORCPT ); Mon, 2 Apr 2007 07:22:26 -0400 Received: from hoefnix.telenet-ops.be ([195.130.132.54]:57519 "EHLO hoefnix.telenet-ops.be" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753460AbXDBLWZ (ORCPT ); Mon, 2 Apr 2007 07:22:25 -0400 Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 13:22:00 +0200 (CEST) From: Geert Uytterhoeven To: Antoine Martin Cc: Jeff Dike , Blaisorblade , devzero@web.de, user-mode-linux-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [uml-devel] [RFC] UML kernel & rootfs bundle with every kernel release ? In-Reply-To: <4610D937.20002@nagafix.co.uk> Message-ID: References: <1712880100@web.de> <200704012108.14597.blaisorblade@yahoo.it> <46100EF5.7040802@nagafix.co.uk> <20070402020530.GA589@c2.user-mode-linux.org> <4610D937.20002@nagafix.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, Antoine Martin wrote: > Jeff Dike wrote: > > On Sun, Apr 01, 2007 at 08:58:45PM +0100, Antoine Martin wrote: > >> I reckon that one critical thing which could drastically increase the > >> user base would be to have a working virtual framebuffer implementation. > > > > Why? I've never understood what a framebuffer gives you that you > > don't have now. > Just like the network auto-configuration via dhcp, it would allow users > to download images+kernel and run them like appliances without > understanding anything about X or UML, just click and run. > We are all capable of setting up Xvfb here, but most users are not, > which is why they download ready-made images. > It would also make it a lot easier to focus on writing a management UI, > hell if there isn't one shortly after, I'll do one myself! > Think of a UML browser image (running IE via wine in a limited image > with just X + wine + IE - I would much prefer that to having wine+IE > installed locally), testing framebuffer apps like gtk-fb/cairo-fb > without risking your dev environment, etc... There are patches floating around for a UML frame buffer device. Gerd Kraxel^H^H^H^H^H^HHoffmann did one using plain X11, which worked great when I gave it a try. A few years ago I tried doing one myself using gdk/gtk, but it didn't work reliably on all systems. My main motivation was doing development for different frame buffer memory organizations (think Amiga and Atari bitplanes) on UML. I suggest taking a look at Gerd's patches. IIRC, he posted them to lkml last year. Gr{oetje,eeting}s, Geert -- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds