Framebuffer HOWTO
Alex Buell, alex.buell@tahallah.clara.co.uk
v1.2, 27 Feb 2000
This document describes how to use the framebuffer devices in Linux
with a variety of platforms. This also includes how to set up multi-
headed displays.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. History
2. Contributors
3. What is a framebuffer device?
4. What advantages does framebuffer devices have?
5. Using framebuffer devices on Intel platforms
5.1 What is vesafb?
5.2 How do I activate the vesafb drivers?
5.3 What VESA modes are available to me?
5.4 Got a Matrox card?
5.5 Got a Permedia card?
5.6 Got a ATI card?
5.7 Which graphic cards are VESA 2.0 compliant?
5.8 Can I make vesafb as a module?
5.9 How do I modify the cursor?
6. Using framebuffer devices on Atari m68k platforms
6.1 What modes are available on Atari m68k platforms?
6.2 Additional suboptions on Atari m68k platforms
6.3 Using the internal suboption on Atari m68k platforms
6.4 Using the external suboption on Atari m68k platforms
7. Using framebuffer devices on Amiga m68k platforms
7.1 What modes are available for Amiga m68k platforms?
7.2 Additional suboptions on Amiga m68k platforms
7.3 Supported Amiga graphic expansion boards
8. Using framebuffer devices on Macintosh m68k platforms
9. Using framebuffer devices on PowerPC platforms
10. Using framebuffer devices on Alpha platforms
10.1 What modes are available to me?
10.2 Which graphic cards can work with the frambuffer device?
11. Using framebuffer devices on SPARC platforms
11.1 Which graphic cards can work with the framebuffer device?
11.2 Configuring the framebuffer devices
12. Using framebuffer devices on MIPS platforms
13. Using framebuffer devices on ARM platforms
13.1 Netwinders
13.2 Acorn Archimedes
13.3 Other ARM ports (SA 7110s et. al)
14. Using multi-headed framebuffers
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Feedback
14.3 Contributors
14.4 Standard Disclaimer
14.5 Copyright Information
14.6 What hardware is supported?
14.7 Commercial support
14.8 Getting all the stuff.
14.9 Getting Started
14.9.1 Move a console over...
14.9.2 Use "fbset" to adjust the setting on this second monitor
14.9.3 Set up X for Frame Buffer support.
14.9.4 Try starting the X server on the second monitor.
14.10 Summary
14.11 Other Notes and Problems
14.11.1 Getting "init level five" (i.e. xdm/gdm) to work
14.11.2 Using the x2x program.
14.11.3 Other useful commands
14.11.4 Appendix A. Octave cvtmode.m script
14.11.5 Appendix B. Borne Shell script "cvtfile"
15. Using/Changing fonts
16. Changing console modes
17. Setting up the X11 FBdev driver
18. How do I convert XFree86 mode-lines into framebuffer device timings?
19. Changing the Linux logo
20. Looking for further information?
______________________________________________________________________
1. History
Revision history
19990607 - Release of 1.0
19990722 - Release of 1.1
20000222 - Release of 1.2
2. Contributors
Thanks go to these people listed below who helped improve the
Framebuffer HOWTO.
· Jeff Noxon jeff@planetfall.com
· Francis Devereux f.devereux@cs.ucl.ac.uk
· Andreas Ehliar ehliar@futurniture.se
· Martin McCarthy marty@ehabitat.demon.co.uk
· Simon Kenyon simon@koala.ie
· David Ford david@kalifornia.com
· Chris Black cblack@cmpteam4.unil.ch
· N Becker nbecker@fred.net
· Bob Tracy rct@gherkin.sa.wlk.com
· Marius Hjelle marius.hjelle@roman.uib.no
· James Cassidy jcassidy@misc.dyn.ml.org
· Andreas U. Trottmann andreas.trottmann@werft22.com
· Lech Szychowski lech7@lech.pse.pl
· Aaron Tiensivu tiensivu@pilot.msu.edu
· Jan-Frode Myklebust for his info on permedia cards
janfrode@ii.uib.no
· Many others too numerous to add, but thanks!
Thanks go to Rick Niles frederick.a.niles@gsfc.nasa.gov who has very
kindly handed over his Multi-Head Mini-HOWTO for inclusion in this
HOWTO.
Thanks to these people listed below who built libc5/glibc2 versions of
the XF86_FBdev X11 framebuffer driver for X11 on Intel platforms:
· Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com
· Gerd Knorr kraxel@cs.tu-berlin.de
and of course the authors of the framebuffer devices:
· Martin Schaller - original author of the framebuffer concept
· Roman Hodek Roman.Hodek@informatik.uni-erlangen.de
· Andreas Schwab schwab@issan.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
· Guenther Kelleter
· Geert Uytterhoeven Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
· Roman Zippel roman@sodom.obdg.de
· Pavel Machek pavel@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz
· Gerd Knorr kraxel@cs.tu-berlin.de
· Miguel de Icaza miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
· David Carter carter@compsci.bristol.ac.uk
· William Rucklidge wjr@cs.cornell.edu
· Jes Sorensen jds@kom.auc.dk
· Sigurdur Asgeirsson
· Jeffrey Kuskin jsk@mojave.stanford.edu
· Michal Rehacek michal.rehacek@st.mff.cuni.edu
· Peter Zaitcev zaitcev@lab.ipmce.su
· David S. Miller davem@dm.cobaltmicro.com
· Dave Redman djhr@tadpole.co.uk
· Jay Estabrook
· Martin Mares mj@ucw.cz
· Dan Jacobowitz dan@debian.org
· Emmanuel Marty core@ggi-project.org
· Eddie C. Dost ecd@skynet.be
· Jakub Jelinek jj@ultra.linux.cz
· Phil Blundell philb@gnu.org
· Anyone else, stand up and be counted. :o)
3. What is a framebuffer device?
A framebuffer device is an abstraction for the graphic hardware. It
represents the frame buffer of some video hardware, and allows
application software to access the graphic hardware through a well-
defined interface, so that the software doesn't need to know anything
about the low-level interface stuff [Taken from Geert Uytterhoeven's
framebuffer.txt in the linux kernel sources]
4. What advantages does framebuffer devices have?
Penguin logo. :o) Seriously, the major advantage of the framebuffer
drives is that it presents a generic interface across all platforms.
It was the case until late in the 2.1.x kernel development process
that the Intel platform had console drivers completely different from
the other console drivers for other platforms. With the introduction
of 2.1.109 all this has changed for the better, and introduced more
uniform handling of the console under the Intel platforms and also
introduced true bitmapped graphical consoles bearing the Penguin logo
on Intel for the first time, and allowed code to be shared across
different platforms. Note that 2.0.x kernels do not support
framebuffer devices, but it is possible someday someone will backport
the code from the 2.1.x kernels to 2.0.x kernels. There is an
exception to that rule in that the v0.9.x kernel port for m68k
platforms does have the framebuffer device support included.
With the release of the 2.2.x kernel, framebuffer device support is
very solid and stable. You should use the framebuffer device if your
graphic card supports it, if you are using 2.2.x kernels. Older 2.0.x
kernels does not support framebuffer devices, at least on the Intel
platform.
· 0.9.x (m68k) - introduced m68k framebuffer devices. Note that m68k
0.9.x is functionally equivalent to Intel 1.0.9 (plus 1.2.x
enhancements)
· 2.1.107 - introduced Intel framebuffer/new console devices and
added generic support, without scrollback buffer support.
· 2.1.113 - scrollback buffer support added to vgacon.
· 2.1.116 - scrollback buffer support added to vesafb.
· 2.2.x - includes matroxfb(Matrox) and atyfb(ATI).
There are some cool features of the framebuffer devices, in that you
can give generic options to the kernel at bootup-time, including
options specific to a particular framebuffer device. These are:
· video=xxx:off - disable probing for a particular framebuffer device
· video=map:octal-number - maps the virtual consoles (VCs) to
framebuffer (FB) devices
· video=map:01 will map VC0 to FB0, VC1 to FB1, VC2 to FB0, VC3 to
FB1..
· video=map:0132 will map VC0 to FB0, VC1 to FB1, VC2 to FB3, VC4 to
FB2, VC5 to FB0..
Normally framebuffer devices are probed for in the order specified in
the kernel, but by specifying the video=xxx option, you can add the
specific framebuffer device you want probed before the others
specified in the kernel.
5. Using framebuffer devices on Intel platforms
5.1. What is vesafb?
Vesafb is a framebuffer driver for Intel architecture that works with
VESA 2.0 compliant graphic cards. It is closely related to the
framebuffer device drivers in the kernel.
vesafb is a display driver that enables the use of graphical modes on
your Intel platform for bitmapped text consoles. It can also display a
logo, which is probably the main reason why you'd want to use vesafb
:o)
Unfortunately, you can not use vesafb successfully with VESA 1.2
cards. This is because these 1.2 cards do not use linear frame
buffering. Linear frame buffering simply means that the system's CPU
is able to access every bit of the display. Historically, older
graphic adapters could allow the CPU to access only 64K at a time,
hence the limitations of the dreadful CGA/EGA graphic modes! It may be
that someone will write a vesafb12 device driver for these cards, but
this will use up precious kernel memory and involve a nasty hack.
There is however a potential workaround to add VESA 2.0 extensions for
your legacy VESA 1.2 card. You may be able to download a TSR type
program that will run from DOS, and used in cojunction with loadlin,
can help configure the card for the appropriate graphic console modes.
Note that this will not always work, as an example some Cirrus Logic
cards such as the VLB 54xx series are mapped to a range of memory
addresses (for example, within the 15MB-16MB range) for frame
buffering which preludes these from being used successfully with
systems that have more than 32MB of memory. There is a way to make
this work, i.e. if you have a BIOS option to leave a memory hole at
15MB-16MB range, it might work, Linux doesn't support the use of
memory holes. However there are patches for this option though [Who
has these and where do one gets them from?]. If you wish to experiment
with this option, there are plenty of TSR style programs available, a
prime example is UNIVBE, which can be found on the Internet.
Alternatively, you may be able to download kernel patches to allow
your VESA 1.2 card to work with the VESA framebuffer driver. For
example, there are patches for use with older S3 boards (such as S3
Trio, S3 Virge) that supports VESA 1.2. For these cards, you can pick
up patches from
ftp://ccssu.crimea.ua/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/unofficial/s3new.diff.gz
5.2. How do I activate the vesafb drivers?
Assuming you are using menuconfig, you will need to do the following
steps:
If your processor (on Intel platforms) supports MTRRs, enable this. It
speeds up memory copies between the processor and the graphic card,
but not strictly necessary. You can of course, do this after you have
the console device working.
IMPORTANT: For 2.1.x kernels, go into the Code Maturity Level menu,
and enable the prompt for development andor incomplete drivers. This
is no longer necessary for the 2.2.x kernels.
Go into the Console Drivers menu, and enable the following:
· VGA Text Console
· Video Selection Support
· Support for frame buffer devices (experimental)
· VESA VGA Graphic console
· Advanced Low Level Drivers
· Select Mono, 2bpp, 4bpp, 8bpp, 16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp packed pixel
drivers
VGA Chipset Support (text only) - vgafb - used to be part of the list
above, but it has been removed as it is now deprecated and no longer
supported. It will be removed shortly. Use VGA Text Console (fbcon)
instead. VGA Character/Attributes is only used with VGA Chipset
Support, and doesn't need to be selected.
Ensure that the Mac variable bpp packed pixel support is not enabled.
Linux kernel release 2.1.111 (and 112) seemed to enable this
automatically if Advanced Low Level Drivers was selected for the first
time. This no longer happens with 2.1.113.
There is also the option to compile in fonts into memory, but this
isn't really necessary, and you can always use kbd-0.99's (see section
on fonts) setfont utility to change fonts by loading fonts into the
console device.
Make sure these aren't going to be modules. [Not sure if it's possible
to build them as modules yet - please correct me on this]
You'll need to create the framebuffer device in /dev. You need one per
framebuffer device, so all you need to do is to type in mknod /dev/fb0
c 29 0 for the first one. Subsequent ones would be in multiples of 32,
so for example to create /dev/fb1, you would need to type in mknod
/dev/fb1 c 29 32, and so on up to the eighth framebuffer device (mknod
/dev/fb7 c 29 224)
Then rebuild the kernel, modify /etc/lilo.conf to include the VGA=ASK
parameter, and run lilo, this is required in order for you to be able
to select the modes you wish to use.
Here's a sample LILO configuration (taken from my machine)
# LILO configuration file
boot = /dev/hda3
delay = 30
prompt
vga = ASK # Let user enter the desired modes
image = /vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda3
label = Linux
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
Reboot the kernel, and as a simple test, try entering 0301 at the VGA
prompt (this will give you 640x480 @ 256), and you should be able to
see a cute little Penguin logo.
Note, that at the VGA prompt, you're required to type in the number in
the format of "0" plus the 3 digit figure, and miss out the 'x'. This
isn't necessary if you're using LILO.
Once you can see that's working well, you can explore the various VESA
modes (see below) and decide on the one that you like the best, and
hardwire that into the "VGA=x" parameter in lilo.conf. When you have
chosen the one you like the best, look up the equivalent hexadecimal
number from the table below and use that (i.e. for 1280x1024 @ 256,
you just use "VGA=0x307"), and re-run lilo. That's all there it is to
it. For further references, read the LoadLin/LILO HOWTOs.
NOTE! vesafb does not enable scrollback buffering as a default. You
will need to pass to the kernel the option to enable it. Use
video=vesa:ypan or video=vesa:ywrap to activate it. Both does the same
thing, but in different ways. ywrap is a lot faster than ypan but may
not work on slightly broken VESA 2.0 graphic cards. ypan is slower
than ywrap but a lot more compatible. This option is only present in
kernel 2.1.116 and above. Earlier kernels did not have the ability to
allow scrollback buffering in vesafb.
5.3. What VESA modes are available to me?
This really depends on the type of VESA 2.0 compliant graphic card
that you have in your system, and the amount of video memory
available. This is just a matter of testing which modes work best for
your graphic card.
The following table shows the mode numbers you can input at the VGA
prompt or for use with the LILO program. (actually these numbers are
plus 0x200 to make it easier to refer to the table)
Colours 640x400 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
--------+--------------------------------------------------------------
4 bits | ? ? 0x302 ? ? ? ?
8 bits | 0x300 0x301 0x303 0x305 0x161 0x307 0x31C
15 bits | ? 0x310 0x313 0x316 0x162 0x319 0x31D
16 bits | ? 0x311 0x314 0x317 0x163 0x31A 0x31E
24 bits | ? 0x312 0x315 0x318 ? 0x31B 0x31F
32 bits | ? ? ? ? 0x164 ?
Key: 8 bits = 256 colours, 15 bits = 32,768 colours, 16 bits = 65,536
colours, 24 bits = 16.8 million colours, 32 bits - same as 24 bits,
but the extra 8 bits can be used for other things, and fits perfectly
with a 32 bit PCI/VLB/EISA bus.
Additional modes are at the discretion of the manufacturer, as the
VESA 2.0 document only defines modes up to 0x31F. You may need to do
some fiddling around to find these extra modes.
5.4. Got a Matrox card?
If you've got a Matrox graphic card, you don't actually need vesafb,
you need the matroxfb driver instead. This greatly enhances the
capabilities of your card. Matroxfb will work with Matrox Mystique
Millennium I & II, G100 and G200. It also supports multiheaded systems
(that is, if you have two Matrox cards in your machine, you can use
two displays on the same machine!). To configure for Matrox, you will
need to do the following:
You might want to upgrade the Matrox BIOS though, you can download the
BIOS upgrade from
http://www.matrox.com/mgaweb/drivers/ftp_bios.htm
you will need DOS to do this.
Go into the Code Maturity Level menu, and enable the prompt for
development and/or incomplete drivers [note this may change for future
kernels - when this happens, this HOWTO will be revised]
Go into the Console Drivers menu, and enable the following:
· VGA Text Console
· Video Selection Support
· Support for frame buffer devices (experimental)
· Matrox Acceleration
· Select the following depending on the card that you have
· Millennium I/II support
· Mystique support
· G100/G200 support
· Enable Multihead Support if you want to use more than one Matrox
card
· Advanced Low Level Drivers
· Select Mono, 2bpp, 4bpp, 8bpp, 16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp packed pixel
drivers
Rebuild your kernel. Then you will need to modify your lilo.conf file
to enable the Matroxfb device. The quickest and simplest way is re-use
mine.
# LILO configuration file
boot = /dev/hda3
delay = 30
prompt
vga = 792 # You need to do this so it boots up in a sane state
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /vmlinuz
append = "video=matrox:vesa:440" # then switch to Matroxfb
root = /dev/hda3
label = Linux
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
Lastly, you'll need to create the framebuffer device in /dev. You need
one per framebuffer device, so all you need to do is to type in mknod
/dev/fb0 c 29 0 for the first one. Subsequent ones would be in
multiples of 32, so for example to create /dev/fb1, you would need to
type in mknod /dev/fb1 c 29 32, and so on up to the eight framebuffer
device (mknod /dev/fb7 c 29 224)
And that should be it! [NOTE: Is anyone using this multiheaded
support, please get in touch with me ASAP - I need to talk to you
about it so I can document it!
5.5. Got a Permedia card?
Permedia cards cannot be used with the vesafb driver, but fortunately,
there is the Permedia framebuffer driver available to use. Assuming
you are using menuconfig, do the following:
Go into the Code Maturity Level menu, and enable the prompt for
development and/or incomplete drivers [note this may change for future
kernels - when this happens, this HOWTO will be revised]
Go into the Console Drivers menu and select the following:
· VGA Text Console
· Video Selection Support
· Support for frame buffer devices (experimental)
· Permedia2 support (experimental)
· Generic Permedia2 PCI board support
· Advanced Low Level Drivers
· Select Mono, 2bpp, 4bpp, 8bpp, 16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp packed pixel
drivers
· Optionally, select the following, if you wish to use the compiled
in fonts
· Select compiled-in fonts
· Select Sparc console 12x22 font
Rebuild your kernel. Then you will need to modify your lilo.conf file
to enable the pm2fb device. The quickest and simplest way is re-use
the following
# LILO configuration file
boot = /dev/hda3
delay = 30
prompt
vga = 792 # You need to do this so it boots up in a sane state
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /vmlinuz
append = "video=pm2fb:mode:1024x768-75,font:SUN12x22,ypan" # then switch to pm2fb
root = /dev/hda3
label = Linux
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
The line "pm2fb:mode:1024x768-75,font:SUN12x22,ypan" indicates you are
selecting a 1024x768 mode at 75Hz, with the SUN12x22 font selected (if
you did select it), including ypan for scrollback support. You may
select other modes if you desire.
Lastly, you'll need to create the framebuffer device in /dev. You need
one per framebuffer device, so all you need to do is to type in mknod
/dev/fb0 c 29 0 for the first one. Subsequent ones would be in
multiples of 32, so for example to create /dev/fb1, you would need to
type in mknod /dev/fb1 c 29 32, and so on up to the eight framebuffer
device (mknod /dev/fb7 c 29 224)
For more information on the other features of the Permedia framebuffer
driver, point your browser at:
http://www.cs.unibo.it/~nardinoc/pm2fb/index.html
video=pm2fb:[option[,option[,option...]]]
where option is one of the following
· off to disable the driver.
· mode:resolution to set the console resolution. The modes have been
taken from the fb.modes.ATI file in Geert's fbset package. The
depth for all the modes is 8bpp. This is the list of the available
modes:
· 640x480-(60,72,75,90,100)
· 800x600-(56,60,70,72,75,90,100)
· 1024x768-(60,70,72,75,90,100,illo) illo=80KHz 100Hz
· 1152x864-(60,70,75,80)
· 1280x1024-(60,70,74,75)
· 1600x1200-(60,66,76)
· The default resolution is 640x480-60.
· font:font name to set the console font. Example: font:SUN12x22
· ypan sets the current virtual height as big as video memory size
permits.
· oldmem this option is for CybervisionPPC users only. Specify this
if your board has Fujitsu SGRAMs mounted on (all CVisionPPCs before
30-Dec-1998).
· virtual (temporary) specify this if the kernel remaps the PCI
regions on your platform.
5.6. Got a ATI card?
[Note: This information is at best, only second-hand or third-hand,
since I don't have an ATI card to test it with. Feel free to correct
me if I am wrong or flame me!] 8)
ATI cards can be used with the vesafb driver, but you may or may not
have problems, depending on how horribly broken the card is.
Fortunately, there is the atyfb framebuffer driver available to use.
Assuming you are using menuconfig, do the following:
Go into the Code Maturity Level menu, and enable the prompt for
development and/or incomplete drivers [note this may change for future
kernels - when this happens, this HOWTO will be revised]
Go into the Console Drivers menu and select the following:
· VGA Text Console
· Video Selection Support
· Support for frame buffer devices (experimental)
· ATI Mach64 display support
· Advanced Low Level Drivers
· Select Mono, 2bpp, 4bpp, 8bpp, 16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp packed pixel
drivers
· Optionally, select the following, if you wish to use the compiled
in fonts
· Select compiled-in fonts
· Select Sparc console 12x22 font
Rebuild your kernel. Then you will need to modify your lilo.conf file
to enable the atyfb device. The quickest and simplest way is re-use
the following
# LILO configuration file
boot = /dev/hda3
delay = 30
prompt
vga = 792 # You need to do this so it boots up in a sane state
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /vmlinuz
append = "video=atyfb:mode:1024x768,font:SUN12x22"
root = /dev/hda3
label = Linux
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
The line "atyfb:mode:1024x768,font:SUN12x22" indicates you are
selecting a 1024x768 mode.
Lastly, you'll need to create the framebuffer device in /dev. You need
one per framebuffer device, so all you need to do is to type in mknod
/dev/fb0 c 29 0 for the first one. Subsequent ones would be in
multiples of 32, so for example to create /dev/fb1, you would need to
type in mknod /dev/fb1 c 29 32, and so on up to the eight framebuffer
device (mknod /dev/fb7 c 29 224)
video=atyfb:[option[,option[,option...]]]
where option is one of the following
· font:STRING selects the built-in font (compiled into the kernel)
· noblink Turns off blinking
· noaccel Disables acceleration
· vram:ULONG Tells the atyfb driver how much memory you have
· pll:ULONG Unknown
· mclk:ULONG Unknown
· vmode:ULONG Unknown
· cmode:ULONG - sets depth - 0, 8, 15, 16, 24 and 32
5.7. Which graphic cards are VESA 2.0 compliant?
This lists all the graphic cards that are known to work with the
vesafb device:
· ATI PCI VideoExpression 2MB (max. 1280x1024 @ 8bit)
· ATI PCI All-in-Wonder
· Matrox Millennium PCI - BIOS v3.0
· Matrox Millennium II PCI - BIOS v1.5
· Matrox Millennium II AGP - BIOS v1.4
· Matrox Millennium G200 AGP - BIOS v1.3
· Matrox Mystique & Mystique 220 PCI - BIOS v1.8
· Matrox Mystique G200 AGP - BIOS v1.3
· Matrox Productiva G100 AGP - BIOS v1.4
· All Riva 128 based cards
· Diamond Viper V330 PCI 4MB
· Genoa Phantom 3D/S3 ViRGE/DX
· Hercules Stingray 128/3D with TV output
· Hercules Stingray 128/3D without TV output - needs BIOS upgrade
(free from support@hercules.com)
· SiS 6326 PCI/AGP 4MB
· STB Lightspeed 128 (Nvida Riva 128 based) PCI
· STB Velocity 128 (Nvida Riva 128 based) PCI
· Jaton Video-58P ET6000 PCI 2MB-4MB (max. 1600x1200 @ 8bit)
· Voodoo2 2000
This list is composed of on-board chipsets on systems' motherboards:
· Trident Cyber9397
· SiS 5598
This list below blacklists graphic cards that doesn't work with the
vesafb device:
· TBA
5.8. Can I make vesafb as a module?
As far as is known, vesafb can't be modularised, although at some
point in time, the developer of vesafb may decide to modify the
sources for modularising. Note that even if modularising is possible,
at boot time you will not be able to see any output on the display
until vesafb is modprobed. It's probably a lot wiser to leave it in
the kernel, for these cases when there are booting problems.
5.9. How do I modify the cursor?
[Taken from VGA-softcursor.txt - thanks Martin Mares!]
Linux now has some ability to manipulate cursor appearance. Normally,
you can set the size of hardware cursor (and also work around some
ugly bugs in those miserable Trident cards--see #define TRIDENT_GLITCH
in drivers/char/ vga.c). In case you enable "Software generated
cursor" in the system configuration, you can play a few new tricks:
you can make your cursor look like a non-blinking red block, make it
inverse background of the character it's over or to highlight that
character and still choose whether the original hardware cursor should
remain visible or not. There may be other things I have never thought
of.
The cursor appearance is controlled by a
<ESC>[?1;2;3c
sequence where 1, 2 and 3 are parameters described below. If you omit
any of them, they will default to zeroes.
Parameter 1 specifies cursor size (0=default, 1=invisible,
2=underline, ..., 8=full block) + 16 if you want the software cursor
to be applied + 32 if you want to always change the background colour
+ 64 if you dislike having the background the same as the foreground.
Highlights are ignored for the last two flags.
The second parameter selects character attribute bits you want to
change (by simply XORing them with the value of this parameter). On
standard VGA, the high four bits specify background and the low four
the foreground. In both groups, low three bits set colour (as in
normal colour codes used by the console) and the most significant one
turns on highlight (or sometimes blinking--it depends on the
configuration of your VGA).
The third parameter consists of character attribute bits you want to
set. Bit setting takes place before bit toggling, so you can simply
clear a bit by including it in both the set mask and the toggle mask.
To get normal blinking underline, use: echo -e '\033[?2c' To get
blinking block, use: echo -e '\033[?6c' To get red non-
blinking block, use: echo -e '\033[?17;0;64c'
6. Using framebuffer devices on Atari m68k platforms
This section describes framebuffer options on Atari m68k platforms.
6.1. What modes are available on Atari m68k platforms?
Colours 320x200 320x480 640x200 640x400 640x480 896x608 1280x960
--------+---------------------------------------------------------
1 bit | sthigh vga2 falh2 tthigh
2 bits | stmid vga4
4 bits | stlow ttmid/vga16 falh16
8 bits | ttlow vga256
ttlow, ttmid and tthigh are only used by the TT, whilst vga2, vga4,
vga15, vga256, falh3 and falh16 are only used by the Falcon.
When used with the kernel option video=xxx, and no suboption is given,
the kernel will probe for the modes in the following order until it
finds a mode that is possible with the given hardware:
· ttmid
· tthigh
· vga16
· sthigh
· stmid
You may specify the particular mode you wish to use, if you don't wish
to auto-probe for the modes you desire. For example, video=vga16 gives
you a 4 bit 640x480 display.
6.2. Additional suboptions on Atari m68k platforms
There are a number of suboptions available with the video=xxx
parameter:
· inverse - inverts the display so that the background/foreground
colours are reversed. Normally the background is black, but with
this suboption, it gets sets to white.
· font - sets the font to use in text modes. Currently you can only
select VGA8x8, VGA8x16, PEARL8x8. The default is to use the VGA8x8
only if the vertical size of the display is less than 400 pixels,
otherwise it defaults to VGA8x16.
· internal - a very interesting option. See the next section for
information.
· external - as above.
· monitorcap - describes the capabilities for multisyncs. DON'T use
with a fixed sync monitor!
6.3. Using the internal suboption on Atari m68k platforms
Syntax: internal:(xres);(yres)[;(xres_max);(yres_max);(offset)]
This option specifies the capabilities of some extended internal video
hardware, i.e OverScan modes. (xres) and (yres) gives the extended
dimensions of the screen.
If your OverScan mode needs a black border, you'll need to write the
last three arguments of the internal: suboption. (xres_max) is the
maximum line length that the hardware allows, (yres_max) is the
maximum number of lines, and (offset) is the offset of the visible
part of the screen memory to its physical start, in bytes.
Often extended internal video hardware has to be activated, for this
you will need the "switches=*" options. [Note: Author would like extra
information on this, please. The m68k documentation in the kernel
isn't clear enough on this point, and he doesn't have an Atari!
Examples would be helpful too]
6.4. Using the external suboption on Atari m68k platforms
Syntax:
external:(xres);(yres);(depth);(org);(scrmem)[;(scrlen)[;(vgabase)[;(colw)[;(coltype)[;(xres_virtual)]]]]]
This is quite complicated, so this document will attempt to explain as
clearly as possible, but the Author would appreciate if someone would
give this a look over and see that he hasn't fscked something up! :o)
This suboption specifies that you have an external video hardware
(most likely a graphic board), and how to use it with Linux. The
kernel is basically limited to what it knows of the internal video
hardware, so you have to supply the parameters it needs in order to be
able to use external video hardware. There are two limitations; you
must switch to that mode before booting, and once booted, you can't
change modes.
The first three parameters are obvious; gives the dimensions of the
screen as pixel height, width and depth. The depth supplied should be
the number of colours is 2^n that of the number of planes required.
For example, if you desire to use a 256 colour display, then you need
to give 8 as the depth. This depends on the external graphic hardware,
though so you will be limited by what the hardware can do.
Following from this, you also need to tell the kernel how the video
memory is organised - supply a letter as the (org) parameter
· n - use normal planes, i.e one whole plane after another
· i - use interleaved planes, i.e. 16 bits of the first plane, then
the 16 bits of the next plane and so on. Only built-in Atari video
modes uses this - and there are no graphic card that supports this
mode.
· p - use packed pixels, i.e consecutive bits stands for all planes
for a pixel. This is the most common mode for 256 colour displays
on graphic cards.
· t - use true colour, i.e this is actually packed pixels, but does
not require a colour lookup table like what other packed pixel
modes uses. These modes are normally 24 bit displays - gives you
16.8 million colours.
However, for monochrome modes, the (org) parameter has a different
meaning
· n - use normal colours, i.e 0=white, 1=black
· i - use inverted colours, i.e. 0=black, 1=white
The next important item about the video hardware is the base address
of the video memory. That is given by the (scrmem) parameter as a
hexadecimal number with an 0x prefix. You will need to find this out
from the documentation that comes with your external video hardware.
The next paramter (scrlen) tells the kernel about the size of the
video memory. If it's missing, this is calculated from the (xres),
(yres) and (depth) parameters. It's not useful to write a value here
these days anyway. To leave this empty, give two consecutive
semicolons if you need to give the (vgabase) parameter, otherwise,
just leave it.
The (vgabase) parameter is optional. If it isn't given, the kernel
can't read/write any colour registers of the video hardware, and thus
you have to set up the appropriate colours before you boot Linux. But
if your card is VGA compatible, you can give it the address where it
can locate the VGA register set so it can change the colour lookup
tables. This information can be found in your external video hardware
documentation. To make this clear, (vgabase) is the base address, i.e
a 4k aligned address. For reading/writing the colour registers, the
kernel uses the address range between (vgabase) + 0x3c7 and (vgabase)
+ 0x3c9. This parameter is given in hexadecimal and must have a 0x
prefix, just like (scrmem).
(colw) is only meaningful, if the (vgabase) parameter is specified. It
tells the kernel how wide each of the colour register is, i.e the
number of bits per single colour (red/green/blue). Default is usually
6 bits, but it is also common to specify 8 bits.
(coltype) is used with the (vgabase) parameter, it tells the kernel
about the colour register model of your graphic board. Currently the
types supported are vga and mv300. vga is the default.
(xres_virtual) is only required for the ProMST/ET4000 cards where the
physical linelength differs from the visible length. With ProMST, you
need to supply 2048, whilst for ET4000, it depends on the
initialisation of the video board.
7. Using framebuffer devices on Amiga m68k platforms
This section describes the options for Amigas, which are quite
similiar to that for the Atari m68k platforms.
7.1. What modes are available for Amiga m68k platforms?
This depends on the chipset used in the Amiga. There are three main
ones; OCS, ECS and AGA which all uses the colour frame buffer device.
· NTSC modes
· ntsc - 640x200
· ntsc-lace - 640x400
· PAL modes
· pal - 640x256
· pal-lace - 640x512
· ECS modes - 2 bit colours on ECS, 8 bit colours on AGA chipsets
only.
· multiscan - 640x480
· multiscan-lace - 640x960
· euro36 - 640x200
· euro36-lace - 640x400
· euro72 - 640x400
· euro72-lace - 640x800
· super72 - 800x300
· super72-lace - 800x600
· dblntsc - 640x200
· dblpal - 640x256
· dblntsc-ff - 640x400
· dblntsc-lace - 640x800
· dblpal-ff - 640x512
· dblpal-lace - 640x1024
· VGA modes - 2 bit colours on ECS, 8 bit colours on AGA chipsets
only.
· vga - 640x480
· vga70 - 640x400
7.2. Additional suboptions on Amiga m68k platforms
These are similar to the Atari m68k suboptions. They are:
· depth - specifies the pixel bit depth.
· inverse - does the same thing as the Atari suboption.
· font - does the same thing as the Atari suboption, although the
PEARL8x8 font is used instead of VGA8x8 font, if the display size
is less than 400 pixel wide.
· monitorcap - specifies the capabilities of the multisync monitor.
Do not use with fixed sync monitors.
7.3. Supported Amiga graphic expansion boards
· Phase5 CyberVision 64 (S3 Trio64 chipset)
· Phase5 CyverVision 64-3D (S3 ViRGE chipset)
· MacroSystems RetinaZ3 (NCR 77C32BLT chipset)
· Helfrich Piccolo, SD64, GVP ECS Spectrum, Village Tronic Picasso
IIII+ and IV/ (Cirrus Logic GD542x/543x)
8. Using framebuffer devices on Macintosh m68k platforms
Currently, the framebuffer device implemented only supports the mode
selected in MacOS before booting into Linux, also supports 1, 2, 4 and
8 bit colours modes.
Framebuffer suboptions are selected using the following syntax
video=macfb:<font>:<inverse>
You can select fonts such as VGA8x8, VGA8x16 and 6x11 etc. The inverse
option allows you to use reverse video.
9. Using framebuffer devices on PowerPC platforms
The author would love to receive information on the use of
framebuffers on this platform.
10. Using framebuffer devices on Alpha platforms
10.1. What modes are available to me?
So far, there is only the TGA PCI card - which only does 80x30 with a
resolution of 640x480 at either 8 bits or 24/32 bits.
10.2. Which graphic cards can work with the frambuffer device?
This lists all the graphic cards that are known to work:
· DEC TGA PCI (DEC21030) - 640x480 @ 8 bit or 24/32 bit versions
11. Using framebuffer devices on SPARC platforms
11.1. Which graphic cards can work with the framebuffer device?
This lists all the graphic cards available:
· MG1/MG2 - SBus or integrated on Sun3 - max. 1600x1280 @ mono
(BWtwo)
· CGthree - Similar to MG1/MG2 but supports colour - max resolution ?
· GX - SBus - max. 1152x900 @ 8bit (CGsix)
· TurboGX - SBus - max. 1152x900 @ 8 bit (CGsix)
· SX - SS10/SS20 only - max. 1280x1024 @ 24 bit - (CGfourteen)
· ZX(TZX) - SBus - accelerated 24bit 3D card - max resolution ?
(Leo)
· TCX - AFX - for Sparc 4 only - max. 1280x1024 @ 8bit
· TCX(S24) - AFX - for Sparc 5 only - max. 1152x900 @ 24bit
· Creator - SBus - max. 1280x1024 @ 24bit (FFB)
· Creator3D - SBus - max. 1920x1200 @ 24bit (FFB)
· ATI Mach64 - accelerated 8/24bit for Sparc64 PCI only
There is the option to use the PROM to output characters to the
display or to a serial console.
Also, have a look at the Sparc Frame Buffer FAQ at
http://c3-a.snvl1.sfba.home.com/Framebuffer.html
11.2. Configuring the framebuffer devices
During make config, you need to choose whether to compile promcon
and/or fbcon. You can select both, but if you do this, you will need
to set the kernel flags to select the device. fbcon always takes
precedence if not set. If promcon is not selected in, on boot up, it
defaults to dummycon. If promcon is selected, it will use this device.
Once the buses are booted, and fbcon is compiled in, the kernel probes
for the above framebuffers and will use fbcon. If there is no
framebuffer devices, it will default to promcon.
Here are the kernel options
video=sbus:options
where options is a comma separated list:
nomargins sets margins to 0,0
margins=12x24 sets margins to 12,24 (default is computed
from resolution)
off don't probe for any SBus/UPA framebuffers
font=SUN12x22 use a specific font
So for example, booting with
video=sbus:nomargins,font=SUN12x22
96x40, looks similar to a Solaris console but with colours and virtual
terminals just like on the Intel platform.
If you want to use the SUN12x22 font, you need to enable it during
make config (disable the fontwidth != 8 option). The accelerated
framebuffers can support any font width between 1 to 16 pixels, whilst
dumb frame buffers only supports 4, 8, 12 and 16 pixel font widths.
It is recommended that you grab a recent consoletools packages.
12. Using framebuffer devices on MIPS platforms
There is no need to change anything for this platform, this is all
handled for you automatically. Indys in particular are hardwired to
use a console size of 160x64. However, moves are afoot to rewrite the
console code for these Indys, so keep an eye on this section.
13. Using framebuffer devices on ARM platforms
13.1. Netwinders
For the Netwinders (which uses the ARM SA110 RISC chip - a lovely
British processor), there are two versions of the Cyber2000
framebuffer driver - one for 2.0.x kernels and one for 2.2.x kernels.
It is quite straightforward to enable and use this driver on both
kernels, however, the older version is hardcoded for depth and
resolution (blech), but the good news is that the newer version in the
2.2.x kernels is much more flexible, but currently in a state of flux
as it is still in development. To get this up and running, your best
bet is to read the documentation that comes with the ARM port of the
kernel sources.
The Netwinders uses a VGA compatible chipset, but unfortunately noone
has ported vgafb to it yet. That might happen if someone has some time
on their hands. [I would do it if someone would give me a NetWinder to
play with]
13.2. Acorn Archimedes
Acorns have always had framebuffer support since the Linux 1.9.x days.
However the Acornfb driver in 2.2.x is totally new since the generic
framebuffer interface changed during the development of 2.1.x kernels
(which, of course, became 2.2.x). As previously, it is a simple matter
to activate the driver and set depths and resolutions.
13.3. Other ARM ports (SA 7110s et. al)
Surprisingly, there is even a framebuffer driver for the Psion 5 and
the Geofox! I have been told that it displays the Penguin quite well.
[Someone please donate me a Psion 5!]
14. Using multi-headed framebuffers
This part of the document was very kindly donated by Frederick A.
Niles, who retains all rights to the information contained herewith
this section of the HOWTO.
14.1. Introduction
The main goal of this document is to get you started with running a
dual head configuration of Linux. While this process is pretty
straight forward there are numerous things that one can do wrong along
the way.
The example I concentrate on is getting an X-server running on a
second monitor. I find this nice as you can usually find old large
19" to 21" fixed frequency monitors around that people are giving away
because they can't use them. This way you can boot off a small
multisync and then use X on a nice big monitor.
Please understand dual head support is currently developing so this
information changes rapidly. Anything in this document could be out
of date or just plain incorrect by the time you are reading this.
** WARNING ** This document was written before any XFree86 4.0
release. If you are reading this and XFree86 4.0 is already released
many things may have changed. Try getting a newer version of this
document if it's available.
14.2. Feedback
Feedback is most certainly welcome for this document. Without your
submissions and input, this document wouldn't exist. So, please post
your additions, comments and criticisms to:
Frederick.A.Niles@gsfc.nasa.gov.
14.3. Contributors
The following people have contributed to this mini-HOWTO.
* Petr Vandrovec vandrove@vc.cvut.cz
* Andreas Ehliar ehliar@lysator.liu.se (x2x)
* Marco Bizzarri m.bizzarri@icube.it (multiple X servers)
14.4. Standard Disclaimer
No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted. Use
the concepts, examples and other content at your own risk. As this is
a new edition of this document, there may be errors and inaccuracies
that could be damaging to your system. Proceed with caution, and
although this is highly unlikely, I don't take any responsibility for
that.
14.5. Copyright Information
This section of the document is copyrighted (c)1999 Frederick Niles
and distributed under the following terms:
* Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or
in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this
copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution
is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be
notified of any such distributions.
* All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works
incorporating any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this
copyright notice. That is, you may not produce a derivative work from
a HOWTO and impose additional restrictions on its distribution.
Exceptions to these rules may be granted under certain conditions;
please contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator at the address given below.
* If you have questions, please contact, the Linux HOWTO coordinator,
at linux-howto@sunsite.unc.edu
14.6. What hardware is supported?
Most video cards assume they will be the only one in the system and
are permanently set with the addressing of the primary display
adapter. There are a few exceptions.
* Matrox cards: This includes Matrox Millennium, Matrox Millennium
II, Matrox Mystique, Matrox Mystique 220, Matrox Productiva G100,
Matrox Mystique G200, Matrox Millennium G200 and Matrox Marvel G200
video cards
* MDA: This includes monochrome Hercules graphics adapter among
others. This for text only second head support.
Note: it's only the second adapter that has to be one of the above.
14.7. Commercial support
This mini-HOWTO in primarily concerned with free software. However,
there are commercial X servers with multi-head support. These include
Metro Link's (www.metrolink.com) Metro-X and Xi Graphics'
(www.xig.com) Accelerated-X.
14.8. Getting all the stuff.
You'll need the following patches and programs:
* "fbset" program try:
http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/bin/
(note: this program comes with RedHat 6.0)
* "fbaddon" Matrox dual head patches for Linux kernel try:
ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/linux/matrox-latest/
* "con2fb" program try:
ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/linux/matrox-latest/
* The X11 frame buffer server XF86_FBDev. This is a standard part of
XFree86 3.3.1.
14.9. Getting Started
The first thing you'll need to do is to patch a copy of the Linux
source with the "fbaddon" patch. Then you need to configure the
kernel and turn on frame buffer support. If you have Matrox cards
turn on Matrox unified accelerated driver support as well as the
particular type of card you have. Don't turn on VESA frame buffer
support. It can cause a conflict. Do turn on multi-head support
(obviously). Build the kernel and reboot.
Now you need to install the "fbset" program and carefully read all the
documentation on how to adjust the settings. Using a "/etc/fb.modes"
file is highly recommended once you've decided on your settings. The
fbset program includes a Perl script to convert your XF86Config file
to fb.modes settings. I've included my octave/Borne shell script to
convert your XF86Config file in Appendix A & B.
You need to get comfortable with using the frame buffer device on one
monitor, understanding any issues that can arise from your set up that
have nothing to do with multi-head support. This can save a lot of
head scratching later.
I'm going to concentrate my explanation on getting X running on the
second monitor as doing most other configurations will just be a
obvious subset of the procedure.
14.9.1. Move a console over...
Compile the "con2fb" program. If you run it without any arguments
you'll get the following usage message:
"usage: con2fb fbdev console".
Thus, an example command would be "con2fb /dev/fb1 /dev/tty6" to move
virtual console number six over to the second monitor. Use Ctrl-Alt-
F6 to move over to that console and see that it does indeed show up on
the second monitor.
14.9.2. Use "fbset" to adjust the setting on this second monitor
Only set the "fbset" settings on the monitor you run the "fbset"
command on. Therefore, you must be careful to use the "-fb" flag on
the second monitor. In particular, if you do nothing else you'll
probably want to at least set the virtual vertical resolution to your
actually vertical resolution.
e.g. "fbset -fb /dev/fb1 -vyres 600"
This will seriously slow down text mode, but X will be obnoxious
without it.
14.9.3. Set up X for Frame Buffer support.
The framebuffer.txt file explains this better than I can, but here's
the two important points.
Make sure you set the link for "X" to point to "XF86_FBDev".
Next you need to add a monitor section to your XF86Config file for the
frame buffer device. Here's an example:
# The Frame Buffer server
Section "Screen"
Driver "fbdev"
Device "Millennium"
Monitor "NEC MultiSync 5FGp"
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "default"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "default"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "default"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "default"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection
Use the "default" modes as I don't think any other one will work with
the Matrox frame buffer.
14.9.4. Try starting the X server on the second monitor.
Set the variable FRAMEBUFFER to the second frame buffer.
"export FRAMEBUFFER=/dev/fb1"
or
"setenv FRAMEBUFFER /dev/fb1"
You need to start the X server so that it both matches the selected
color depth and it appears on the same monitor you start the X server
from.
e.g. "startx -- :0 -bpp 16 vt06"
This example will start the "zeroth" X server on virtual console six
with 16 bit color. Using ":1" when launching another X server for the
other frame buffer will allow you to have two X servers running.
14.10. Summary
The steps involved in getting an X server running on a second monitor
can be summarized as follows:
* Get the kernel patch, fbset, and con2fb.
* Patch the kernel, configure, rebuild, and reboot.
* Add XF86_FBDev section to XF86Config file and set X link.
Then each time you reboot:
* Move a console over. e.g. "con2fb /dev/fb1 /dev/tty6"
* Adjust the settings e.g. "fbset -fb /dev/fb1 1280x1024"
* Set the FRAMEBUFFER. e.g. "export FRAMEBUFFER=/dev/fb1"
* Start the X server. e.g. "startx -- -bpp 16 vt06"
You can automate this each time you reboot via a shell alias. It must
be an alias and not a shell script since it needs to detect the
current console number. This is my C-shell alias to start up X on a
second fixed frequency monitor:
alias startxfb = "
setenv FRAMEBUFFER /dev/fb\!*; # Set the env var to the cmd arg.
con2fb $FRAMEBUFFER /dev/$tty; # Move the fb to the current tty.
fbset -fb $FRAMEBUFFER 1280x1024@62; # Favorite from /etc/fb.modes
startx -- :\!* -bpp 16 vt0`echo $tty | cut -dy f 2`' # X on this tty.
"
In my .cshrc file these are all on the same line together without the
comments, but it's easier to read here with line breaks and comments
inserted. I just give the number of the frame buffer as an argument
and it starts right up.
I'm not sure how to do this same alias in bash. I don't know how to
determine the current tty or get the arguments to an alias in bash.
If someone lets me know I'll insert it here. However, you can use the
"tty" command to get the name of the current VT and just make two
separate aliases for each X server.
14.11. Other Notes and Problems
* Both "fbset" and "startx" MUST be run from the same frame buffer as
the one being affected. This places serious limits on how much of
these commands can be automated via scripts.
* XFree86 4.0 will have "proper" multi-head support, but 3.3.1 does
not. You can run two servers with 3.3.1 and use x2x to switch between
them however...(see the next bullet)
* The inactive frame buffer will just hold the last image of when it
was active, no updates with occur.
* The monitor that's not selected doesn't always preseve it's state
when not active. (But it usually does.)
* Geert Uytterhoeven (the frame buffer maintainer) and Linus Torvalds
don't agree with the current "frame buffer per VT" multi-head console
support changes (i.e. fbaddon) so it may never be in the mainstream
kernel tree. (This was heard third hand and may be wildly untrue.)
* If you "break the rules" and start the X server (run "startx") from
a different monitor, the machine can eventually crash badly with the
keyboard and mouse input all mixed together.
* The documentation framebuffer.txt in the kernel source explains that
you can use the Modeline settings in your XF86Config file directly
when running X. Using the Matrox frame buffer seems to force the X
server to drop all of those. So you can only have the one ("default")
setting at at time (the same one you had in text mode).
* The XF86_FBDev is unaccelerated. However, there are patches for
accelerated Matrox support at
http://www.in-berlin.de/User/kraxel/xfree86/
14.11.1. Getting "init level five" (i.e. xdm/gdm) to work
I have not yet figured out a way to boot with init level 5 with a dual
monitor configuration (and actually have the server on either the
second montior or both). While it seems easy enough to add a line to
the gdm/xdm Xservers file, the constrain that you must start the X
server from the same frame buffer prevents the obvious solution from
working. If anyone finds a way please e-mail me and I'll add it here.
14.11.2. Using the x2x program.
There's a nice little program called x2x that will switch X servers
for you when you get to the edge of the screen. Last known home for
this program was:
http://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/SRC/x2x/
also an optional Debian package. I haven't tried it yet but some
users have reported success.
14.11.3. Other useful commands
These are existing linux commands that are worth remembering when
dealing with a multi-head configuration (especially in writing
scripts).
* "chvt" will allow you to switch between virtual terminals.
* "openvt" start a program on a new virtual terminal (VT).
* "tty" will report the name of the current terminal.
14.11.4. Appendix A. Octave cvtmode.m script
(note the bpp setting)
#!/usr/bin/octave -q
bpp = 16;
DCF = sscanf(argv(1,:), "%f");
HR = sscanf(argv(2,:), "%f");
SH1 = sscanf(argv(3,:), "%f");
SH2 = sscanf(argv(4,:), "%f");
HFL = sscanf(argv(5,:), "%f");
VR = sscanf(argv(6,:), "%f");
SV1 = sscanf(argv(7,:), "%f");
SV2 = sscanf(argv(8,:), "%f");
VFL = sscanf(argv(9,:), "%f");
pixclock = 1000000 / DCF;
left_margin = HFL - SH2;
right_margin = SH1 - HR;
hsync_len = SH2 - SH1;
# 3) vertical timings:
upper_margin = VFL - SV2;
lower_margin = SV1 - VR;
vsync_len = SV2 - SV1;
RR = DCF / (HFL * VFL) *1e6;
HSF = DCF / HFL * 1e3;
printf("mode \"%dx%d\"\n",HR,VR);
printf(" # D: %3.2f MHz, H: %3.2f kHz, V: %2.2f Hz\n", DCF, HSF, RR);
printf(" geometry %d %d %d %d %d\n", HR, VR, HR, VR, bpp);
printf(" timings %d %d %d %d %d %d %d\n", ...
pixclock, left_margin, right_margin, ...
upper_margin, lower_margin, ...
hsync_len, vsync_len);
printf("endmode\n");
14.11.5. Appendix B. Borne Shell script "cvtfile"
(This calls the octave script "cvtmode")
#!/bin/sh
# Shell script to convert XF86Config file to fb.modes file.
# Uses octave script cvtmode.m
if [ -z $1 ]; then
FILE=/etc/X11/XF86Config
else
FILE=$1
fi
i=1
LEN=`grep Modeline $FILE | wc -l`
while expr $i \< $LEN > /dev/null ;
do
CURLINE=`grep Modeline $FILE | cut -d'"' -f 3-20 | head -$i | tail -1 `
./cvtmode.m $CURLINE
echo " "
i=`expr $i + 1`
done
15. Using/Changing fonts
To get the capability to change fonts, you need kbd-0.99. You may
obtain this from
ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux/utils/kbd
One advantage of downloading and installing kbd-0.99 is that you will
be able to load international fonts (i.e Euro symbol) into your
console device (It is tres chic to have three symbols on my keyboard,
the dollar sign, the English pound sign and the Euro sign!).
16. Changing console modes
To get the capability to change modes (i.e 640x480, 800x800 etc), you
need fbset (currently fbset-19990118.tar.gz) - you may ftp it from:
http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/bin/fbset-19990118.tar.gz
This comes with a full set of instructions on how to operate this.
17. Setting up the X11 FBdev driver
If you are not using XFree86 3.3.3.1 or later, you are urged to
upgrade to XFree86 3.3.3.1 - it includes a FBdev X driver for
framebuffer devices. Otherwise, follow the steps below to either
download or build your own FBdev driver for older XFree86 versions
such as 3.3.2, 3.3.3 etc.
Go to
http://www.xfree86.org
unpack, and configure the drivers, following these steps:
· Edit xc/config/cf/xf86site.def, uncomment the #define for
XF68FBDevServer
· Comment out all references to FB_VISUAL_STATIC_DIRECTCOLOR, as
these are bogus and aren't used any more. If you are using XFree86
3.3.3.1, there is no need to do this step - as they have removed
this.
· Edit xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/os-support/linux/lnx_io.c, and
change K_RAW to K_MEDIUMRAW.
and then build the driver. Don't worry about the m68k references, it
supports Intel platforms. Then build the whole thing - it'll take a
long time though as it's a large source tree.
Alternatively, if you don't have the time to spare, you can obtain the
binaries from the sites below. Please note that these are 'unofficial'
builds and you use them at your risk.
For libc5, use the one at:
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~kraxel/linux/XF68_FBDev.gz
For glibc2, download from these URLs.
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~kraxel/linux/XF68_FBDev.libc6.gz
http://pobox.com/~brion/linux/fbxserver.html
There have been reports that X11 is non functional on certain graphic
cards with this vesafb feature enabled, if this is happening, try the
new XF86_FBdev driver for X11.
This driver, along with vesafb can also help run X11 in higher graphic
resolutions with certain graphic chipsets which are not supported by
any of the current X11 drivers. Examples are MGA G-200 et. al.
To configure the XF86_FBdev driver with your X11 system, you'll need
to edit your XF86Config for the following:
Section "Screen"
Driver "FBDev"
Device "Primary Card"
Monitor "Primary Monitor"
SubSection "Display"
Modes "default"
EndSubSection
EndSection
You'll also need to set XkbDisable in the keyboard section as well, or
invoke the XF86_FBDev server with the '-kb' option to set up your
keyboard so it works properly. If you forget to set XkbDisable, you
will have to put the following lines in your .Xmodmap to straighten
out the keyboard mappings. Alternatively, you can edit your xkb to
reflect the list below.
This is fixed in XFree86 3.3.3.1, and it is a good idea to upgrade to
this version anyway because there are quite a few bug fixes, and also,
it includes FBDev as one of the drvers, as I've mentioned previously.
! Keycode settings required
keycode 104 = KP_Enter
keycode 105 = Control_R
keycode 106 = KP_Divide
keycode 108 = Alt_R Meta_R
keycode 110 = Home
keycode 111 = Up
keycode 112 = Prior
keycode 113 = Left
keycode 114 = Right
keycode 115 = End
keycode 116 = Down
keycode 117 = Next
keycode 118 = Insert
keycode 119 = Delete
You may need to do some fiddling around with this (try copying the
original definition from the original X11 driver that you were using
and editing the name of the driver to FBDev), but basically this is
what you need to do to use the vesafb X11 driver.
Hopefully the X11 problems with supported graphic cards will be fixed
in future releases.
18. How do I convert XFree86 mode-lines into framebuffer device tim
ings?
If you have XFree86 (X11) installed on your machine, and you can use
it successfully, it is a simple matter to convert the mode-lines in
your XF86Config to the required timings needed by the framebuffer
devices.
The framebuffer device requires the following fields
· pixclock - pixel clock in pico seconds
· left_margin - time fron sync to picture
· right_margin - time from picture to sync
· upper_margin - time from sync to picture
· lower_margin - time from picture to sync
· hsync_len - length of horizontal sync
· vsync_len - length of vertical sync
An XFree86 mode line has the following fields
Modeline "1280x1024" DCF HR SH1 SH2 HFL VR SV1 SV2 VFL
It is necessary to do some simple calculations to translate the XF86
mode-lines into a set of framebuffer device timings. As an example, we
shall examine how to convert a mode-line taken from my XF86Config
file.
Modeline "1280x1024" 110.00 1280 1328 1512 1712 1024 1025 1028 1054
First, calculate the required pixclock rate. XFree86 uses megahertz
whilst framebuffer devices uses picoseconds (Why, I don't know).
Divide one million by DCF. For example, 1,000,000 / 110.0 = 9090.9091
Now we need to calculate the horizontal timings.
· left_margin = HFL - SH2
· right_margin = SH1 - HR
· hsync_len = SH2 - SH1
In our example, this would be:
· left_margin = 1712 - 1512 = 200
· right_margin = 1328 - 1280 = 48
· hsync_len = 1512 - 1328 = 184
And now we need to calculate the vertical timings.
· upper_margin = VFL - SV2
· lower_margin = SV1 - VR
· vsync_len = SV2 - SV1
For our example, this would be:
· upper_margin = 1054 - 1028 = 26
· lower_margin = 1025 - 1024 = 1
· vsync_len = 1028 - 1025 = 3
Now we can use this information to set up the framebuffer for the
desired mode. For example, for the matroxfb framebuffer, it requires:
video=matrox:xres:<>,yres:<>,depth:<>,left:<>,right:<>,hslen:<>,upper:<>,lower:<>,vslen:<>
I put in my /etc/lilo.conf the following line:
append = "video=matrox:xres:1280,yres:1024,depth:32,left:200,right:48,hslen:184,upper:26,lower:0,vslen:3"
Note that in this case the pixclock isn't used. It's only necessary if
you don't like the default pixclock rates. You can supply this as a
parameter as well. Setting the pixclock is documented in other parts
of this HOWTO.
19. Changing the Linux logo
It can be customised by changing the file linux_logo.h in
include/linux directory. its a c header and pretty hard to change by
hand however there is a plugin available for gimp
http://registry.gimp.org/detailview.phtml?plugin=Linux+Logo
will create one for you. all you need is a picture 80x80 with less
than 224 colours. you can either let the plug in create the 3 vari
eties (2,16,224) or create them yourself and use them with the plug-
in. it will ask you where you want to store the file and if you are
game you can put it in ($SRCDIR)/include/linux/linux_logo.h. once that
is finished all you need to do is recompile the kernel as usual,
reboot, and if framebuffer is working you will see your new logo upon
bootup.
20. Looking for further information?
For those of you interested in working with the framebuffer drivers,
point your browser at
http://www.linux-fbdev.org
information on programming.
French speakers, there is a translation at
http://www.freenix.org/unix/linux/HOWTO/mini/Vesafb.html
